50 reasons to leave the EU

With Thanks to Trixy (More to life than shoes)

1) 75% of our laws are now made by the EU. Roman Herzog the former German President recently said that 84% of the laws in Germany are now passed in Brussels.

2) Democratic Deficit: The Commission are unelected and unaccountable. Turnout for the EP elections is less than 50% across the whole EU, despite voting being compulsory in some countries.

3) Common Agricultural Policy: Funding farmers for not producing (formerly wine lakes, butter mountains and now non-existent olive groves, dairy herds and vine yards), the farce of subsidy payments whereby DEFRA was fined £300 million for late payment of subsidies, paid from British taxes that had been sent to the EU and partially returned.

4) Galileo satellite system: Multi billion pound 'grand project' that is driven by delays, costs and technical problems. Will be superseded by competition. The need to pay for this project is the main reason for the hated road pricing scheme.

5) Retirement home and pension funds for politicians rejected by the electorate: Neil Kinnock, anyone?

6) Airbus: Business driven by politics, and a black hole for tax revenue.

Failing business model driven by EU politics not markets and business requirements, resulting in the collapse of the A400M which is supposed to provide heavy military lift.

7) ID Cards: The drive for ID cards the database state is coming from the EU. You can't buy cigarettes in Germany unless you use your computer chip ID

8) CFP: Destruction of European fishing grounds and wrecking the livelihoods of British fishermen.

9) Strasbourg: £250 million a year, for what?

10) Corruption: Edith Cresson employing her dentist as an advisor on developing world aid, Santer Commission resigning in disgrace, covered up accounts scandal within the Committee of the Regions, Eurostat being described by the House of Commons as 'a grand enterprise of looting'…need we go on?

11) OLAF: A anti-fraud body that arrests investigative journalists rather than criminals

12) Groundwater Directive: Desert Orchid could not be buried at Kempton Park

13) Weights and Measures: Unnecessary criminalisation of selling in pounds and ounces

14) Crowns on Pints: Replacement of 300 years of tradition for a wannabe super state symbolism.

15) Accounts: Have not been signed off for 12 years. The one time a professional accountant raised the problems with the accounts she was fired.

16) Cucumber Directive: what's wrong with them being bent?:

17) Ladders: The EU has ordered us on how we should and shouldn't use ladders. Why is our money being spent on legislation which we do not need. Do they think we're idiots?

18) Football: The EU wishes to decide who can play for British clubs, how much they can be paid:

19) Balkans: EU forces watched while 6000 were murdered at Srebrenica

20) Euro: One interest rate for 13 countries with massively different economies does not work. High inflation in some countries, stagnation in others. One size does fit all.

21) Immigration: not having the power to decide who can and who cannot come to live and work in a country is a basic requirement of a nation. The enlargement of the EU to include Eastern European countries has seen the highest level of immigration into Britain ever. The UK is not allowed to deny entry to people from the EU with criminal records, nor are they allowed to deport criminals from the EU once they have finished their sentence.

22) Regionalisation: The aim to rearrange police forces, ambulance crews and fire crews to a regional structure is driven by the regionalisation project of the EU, which has also brought in an extra layer of government in the form of regional assemblies which are unwanted, unelected and unaccountable to the people they are supposed to represent.

23) Habeas Corpus: The replacement of our Common Law and its protection of freedoms by the Napoleonic code which sees people as guilty until proven innocent. It would mean the removal of trial by jury and imprisonment without trial. The classic case of this is the Greek plane spotters.

24) PC lexicon: The European Commission has issued a document to go to all member states informing them of the language they are able to use and words which are forbidden, in the event of a terrorist attack. They have refused to release this guide, but admit it exists.

25) Mandelson: Twice thrown out of the British government, and yet his new position makes him more powerful than Gordon Brown.

26) Europol: The fact that police can have immunity under the law breaches the basic idea of legal equality. They do not swear allegiance to the British Head of State and can therefore ignore the requests of our government.

27) EuroGenFor: A European paramilitary force designed specifically for the putting down of civil dissent

28) Working Time Directive: The EU, not the individual, decides how long they can work for. This has caused financial problems for some people who cannot do enough hours to earn a decent wage. High profile cases of Ambulance crews not being able to answer emergency calls because they have to take a break, meaning lives are lost. Yet, parliamentary assistants aren't covered by this.

29) Red Duster: Attempt by the EU to replace the red ensign with the EU flag, meaning that vessels are covered by EU law rather than British law.

30) Aid Policy: The UK pays about 15% of the EU aid budget, which, as Clare Short pointed out, is often used for political ends rather than to help those who genuinely need it.

31) Flight Taxes: The EU talks about the importance of free movement of people but is attempting to scupper its own plans by imposing extra taxation on flights. Against the wishes of their own President.

32) Education: The EU is trying to create a common history syllabus, airbrushing out most of our history. The World Wars become European civil wars and the EU will be the bringer of peace.

33) EU Constitution: Despite the French and Dutch rejecting the EU Constitution, the EU leaders are determined that it is ratified. This weekend's 50th anniversary Berlin Declaration is all part of this process.

34) Anti Americanism: The EU's main foreign policy objective is driven by contempt for Europe's greatest ally. The deliberate repudiation of the Marshall plan, and 50 years of defensive shield, like a teenager who resents their free rent

35) Climate Change: An unproven theory which has been taken up with some vigour by the EU who see an opportunity to increase their power. They are using the concern people have about global warming to increase their influence and how people view the institution and are opposing a fair and open debate on whether climate change is as devastating as certain organisations make out. In short, they have made denying it the new witchcraft.

36) EU 'open skies' deal: Despite the British Transport Secretary voting against the decision, the EU has decided that foreign airlines can bid for British take off and landing slots from Heathrow to JFK. This shows that we have so little power that we cannot even decide about our own airport slots.

37) Beef Ban: Despite being found guilty of every rule under the sun, France continued to ban the imports of British beef for ten years. The EU did nothing to make them abide by the law. It took the promise of a separate Parliament to make them lift the ban. (see ' Strasbourg')

38) Rapid Reaction Force: The creation of European Military capacity as a direct challenge to the NATO alliance. Understaffed, undermanned, under equipped and unnecessary.

39) Ruddy Ducks: The EU eradication plan for much loved bird in England to protect a Spanish duck.

40) Employment Law: Where to start? The new age discrimination laws are yet another reason against a small business employing someone, as these laws make them a liability. Gender discrimination laws and positive discrimination openly discriminates against women, and questions whether women in jobs are there on merit, or because of a quota.

41) Iran: The EU's Trialogue has allowed the Iranian authorities to continue with their nuclear weapon programme, providing a massive threat to the stability and security of the Middle East and beyond.

42) Hamas: A terrorist organisation now part funded by the British taxpayer via EU aid.

43) Propaganda: The endless drive to ensure that everyone learns to stop worrying and love the European Union. Essentially using our money to tell us what to think. The latest idea includes a film prize in which entrants must be subtitled in all official European Languages: Text only film.

44) Diplomatic Corps: The slow replacement of National diplomatic representation around the world and the creation of the EU Diplomatic corps, (External Action Service) despite their being no legal basis for such a thing.

45) Energy Policy/Russia: The EU is relying more and more on Russia for its energy sources despite Russia recent use of energy in its brinkmanship with the Ukraine and Georgia putting the EU's energy supply in great danger.

46) Lobbying: 50,000 lobbyists from big business, the NGOP sector live and work in Brussels, doing deals behind the scenes and affecting the rule making without any recourse to public debate

47) Transparency: The Council of Ministers still meet in private. 3,600 working groups meet in the European Commission, nobody is allowed to know who sits on these Committees.

48) Regulation: Estimates on the cost to British business of regulation are approximately £40 billion since 1998:

49) Misuse of Metaphors: Trains, tracks, on, off, back, forth, up, down.

50) EPP: The Conservative Party's friends in Europe are lead by a French farmer who is under investigation in a massive corruption scandal.

51) France: Plus ca change, plus le meme chose