Campaign to Reject the European Commission

Some notes about the cost of Britian’s membership of the European Union:

CREC believes that one important issue relating to Britain’s membership of the European Union is the sheer cost of it to the ordinary taxpayer. Here’s just a few facts which illustrate the scale of the problem:

* The Royal Family costs each of us 66p a year, according to recent figures.

* The EU costs each and every one of us £1500 a year. That’s ­ over 2000 times as much.

* The vast amount we pay to the European Union is made up of separate sets of financial obligations the United Kingdom accepted when we joined:

a) some £14 billion a year is, in effect, our annual subscription - our ‘membership fee’ - paid for by British taxpayers. That’s £1.5 million every hour

b) another £65 billion is spent every year by industry and commerce as the cost of compliance with all EU regulations and directives. That £65 billion is then added to the costs of goods and services sold by British industry and commerce to consumers.

c) finally, E.U. customs duties on imported food add about £600 a year on the food bill for a family of four.

So, one way or another, the EU hits every pocket - old and young, taxpayer or not.

* In addition, the UK has lost some £400 billion in trade with the E.U. since we joined, because we buy more from them than they do from us. That is the equivalent of another £200 a year for every man, woman and child in Britain today. It may not have come out of our pockets directly, but it is certainly a loss to the U.K.’s total wealth.

Derek Norman, Chairman of CREC, comments: “The financial costs of our membership of the E.U. are staggering. We spend billions of pounds, in return for which we suffer endless interference in our British way of life, and endure thousands of regulations, many of them unnecessary and some of which flout common sense.

“The development of the E.U. may be a pet project of the European political elite, but it is costing taxpayers a fortune. More and more taxpayers are now asking why we ever joined this expensive and wasteful club - and are supporting our call for a national referendum on whether it is now time to leave it. Until 1973, we ran our own country without ‘help’ from other E.U. countries. Surely we can, and should, do so once again”.