I'd certainly agree with cutting back The EU administrators in exactly the same way as I'd live to see ours cut right back. In my book, we should have been campaigning for that as members, with other members from day one. It does actually have a fair amount of support from other Countries, notably Germany. Odd isn't it, our 'outers' never seem to keen on killing 'jobs for the boys' in Uk. Just like the other issue Blackdog mentions about VAT, the odd twists on that. Do we really want to go back to good old purchase tax? Now there really was an unfair tax with even more oddities. What would we really loose if we started to think of ourselves as Europeans, who happen to live in the English region; is that really so bad? Arguably, that's the nub.

Same for me. I see very little genuine protest at the big-state busy-work, and that's a real shame because a lightweight pan-European forum is the very thing we need to promote peace and understanding. Creating a single European market takes absolutely nothing at all, it's actually the default position if states would just stop imposing taxes and duties on imports/exports, and I really strongly object to being part of a European Union that only grants trading rights to members who pay their protection money - it's abusive, and the only winners are the parasites that work the con. This for me is what needs reforming, and it's wretched to me to see the UK leaving Europe and isolating ourselves when we should be building bridges.

That's an awful argument - £50 million a day is still £50 million day, and if it's being spent of pointless busy-work and vanity projects then that needs to stop.

50 million would likely give nurses a pay-rise, or perhaps save a good many Citizen's Advice Bureaus from cutting back (but the filthy Tories, and their supporters, don't want those busy bodies about anyway; as is the case with social housing).

And everyone needs flagpoles remember.

How about this trivia,

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Regulations 2013, which are calculated to cost the economy £1.5billion a year without giving us a penny in return, and the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004, which costs industry £41million a year with no measurable financial benefit whatsoever. Lots more where that came from!

I'm not quite sure how these costs are calculated. In fact, from what I understand, both actually give a measure of protection. The second, in particular, is actually something I've always thought absolutely necessary. Of course, the old UK Factory Acts cost the economy, because employers had to shell out safeguarding machinery etc!

Be careful what you wish for!

And is this why you're voting to leave the EU, or is it just something you read about in GQ magazine and are posting here to buttress your substantive reasons?

Edit: Sorry, I see you lifted your opinion from the Mirror this time.

It's always good to see where these opinions are coming from. For example, the Mirror piece you lifted comes from Open Europe, an anti-European conglomeration of business interests who don't like the cost that European legislation is having on their businesses. Here's more from the piece:


It's the Working Time Directive that mandates a reasonable amount of annual holiday for employees so that we have a half-decent chance of maintaining some kind of work-life balance and not being slaves to our employers. Obviously it's not going to be easy for these Captains of Industry just to come out with their whinge that paid holiday costs them profits because it'll make them sound like some Dickensian Workhouse proprietor, but with a little guile it's not too difficult for them to drip the notion into the heads of their working-class schlubs that the legislation that is giving them tolerable industrial health, safety and welfare is in some way hateful, and this piece in the Mirror is a peach.

Two things of interest here, one is that it was the Express not the Mirror. Secondly I find it slightly odd how much effort you put into finding out where I research. Weird or what? Still, to be expected. From you anyway.

The problem for the average person is to find facts and figures to help them decide in or out that is not tainted by our insidious politicians, media Barons, and financial fat cats?

Well said C!

Quite so. Take the opinion piece from Open Europe:

£4.1Billion is obviously a lot of money so it certainly looks as though the Working Time Directive is, as Open Europe confidently bellows, a "a burdensome EU law". But hang on, there are 30 Million people in work in the UK, so the claimed cost to industry is £136 per worker, and that's more or less a single extra day's holiday - not really such a burdensome EU law then is it.

So yes, it's difficult getting information on which to make your own mind up about Europe.

Absolutely! Yes, we thought it would be a cost; that is until we saw the reduction in reportable accidents and the reduction in fulfilment error. Of course, those savings don't get fed back so aren't taken into account.

But is it? Or is it being spent promoting economic growth in Eurpoe's poorer regions - like Wales and Tyneside? The UK gets £4.5 billion in such aid, I suspect poorer countries get more.

Do you really think that the current government would spend it this way? Their natural inclination would be to simply not spend it and thus cut the deficit. They will only spend it if they think they need to buy some votes - when economic prudence instantly goes out of the window.

And would the money exist? There is a good chance that government income would fall in the short term by as much as the result of reduced economic activity.

Errr... didn't you see my cynical rant at the end of my post?

The latest NWN NewburyToday data:

Remain 56%
Leave 36%
I haven't made my mind up yet 6%
I won't be voting 1%

This is what I think will play out in the election.

I wouldn't disagree with that.

We'll stay in, why? Cos the donkeys will be afraid of change.

I think the problem will solve itself soon, it won't be long before Europe tears itself apart under the strain of supporting the Euro, poorer members and the immigrant crisis, better to leave now and make our own way in the world first. It's interesting to note that while BMW (German) is crying wolf, Honda and Toyota (Japan) are both saying the opposite.