View From The House - 6th February 2003

Reprinted From The Lichfield Mercury

Two Fridays back, Jeremy Vine asked me to take part in a debate on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2. He wanted me to debate the issue of “Old Europe” with a French Deputé, their version of an MP. You will recall that the US Secretary of State for Defence said that France and Germany were “Old Europe” - and, presumably, it follows that the UK is “New Europe”.

It was all rather calm until my French opposite number said we live in the past and talked grudgingly about our “surviving the war”. I wasn’t very happy with that! And Jeremy Vine then egged me on to say where Britain’s best interests lie: with the European Union or with the United States? My answer was that Britain’s best interests lie with doing what is best for Britain and we can work with both the US and Europe. But I went on to say that if I had to make a choice, I would choose the US. Why?

The US is already our biggest trading partner and we share a common legal system as well as a common language. Phone calls to America are cheaper than phone calls to France and modern technology has made distance irrelevant and compatibility the important issue. But there’s another factor.

France and Germany have discovered a long lost love affair. And it ain’t doing much for the UK right now. John Major long argued for the expansion of the European Union. He argued, rightly, that by bringing in the eastern countries like Poland and Hungary and Lithuania, the cost to the EU would be so high it would be unsustainable. As a consequence, the EU would have to reform itself and make itself into a much looser organisation of independent States. Well, he was right about the costs rising, but it seems that France and Germany don’t care and are determined to see an ever tightening Euro State. So why should that bother us?

We need still more policemen in Lichfield, Burntwood, and the surrounding area. We need more hospital facilities - not fewer - as our population grows. We should not be dissuading children from going to university because of the debt they will accrue. Our old people deserve decent pensions. But this all costs money.

A couple of years ago, the United States Government undertook research into what was the net benefit financially of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Taking everything into account, both the direct and indirect costs and benefits, they reckoned the annual gain to the UK is around minus $45 billion. Or putting it another way, our membership is costing the British taxpayer around £30 billion each year. That’s roughly equivalent to the cost of opening 100 brand new district hospitals every year!

Well, maybe the Americans have got their sums wrong. They reckon with the World Trade Organisation allowing trade with European countries regardless of whether or not we are paying into the E.U. (after all, countries like the United States, Norway, and Switzerland all trade with the E.U. even though they are not members) Britain need not be a member either.

So I have asked the Government to conduct our own analysis and make it public. They refuse. Why? Are they embarrassed by what the figures might show? If the E.U. is so wonderful as Tony Blair used to claim, they should be only too happy to produce the figures and publish the results. All I have had back from Government Ministers is comments like “Lots of other countries are queuing up to join!” Of course they are. Countries like those who will join the E.U. in 2004 will be funded by Britain and Germany. No wonder they want to join.

Now, I can well understand the European ideal after two world wars. In a way, it is laudable. But what is right for Germany and France is not right for us as Tony Blair is discovering. When two months ago he went to a meeting in Europe to discuss how the budgets can be reformed before 2004 (on the John Major principle), he found that the French and Germans had already reached an agreement not to change the formulae and he was stitched up. Tony was not a happy bunny and, personally, I can’t blame him. That £30 billion will rise steeply from 2004 onwards as a consequence. And the British taxpayer will be the one forking out.

More recently, the French and Germans have said that they would welcome Robert Mugabe to a conference in Europe even though there is supposed to be an international ban on Mugabe and his entourage from travelling out of Zimbabwe. And finally, France and Germany have decided they want the European Union to force on Britain a foreign policy set in Brussels and a written constitution which will apply to all members of the E.U.