The EU is Destroying UK Jobs
The European Union destroys UK jobs with the burden of excessive regulation, and by its attempts to protect outdated industries.
The EU was devised in the Fifties to solve the problems of the Forties. It has no relevance to the twenty-first century. Its reliance on Big Government, restrictive labour markets, state subsidy and ever-increasing regulation is counter-productive in a modern world of global competition, consumer choice and innovation. |
The Burden of EU Regulations
The EU Commission itself has estimated that EU regulation costs businesses 600 billion Euros a year, while the savings from the free market amount to only 180 billion Euros. These costs handicap British businesses in creating jobs. Only 15% of our economy exports to the EU, but all of our businesses, however small and local, suffer from EU regulation. The City, our most successful exporter, is now starting to feel the heavy hand of EU interference.
More and more industries are similarly affected - see News of the European Union.
EU laws (created by Brussels bureaucrats who have never had real jobs) are the cause of Europe's reducing prosperity, compared with other areas of the world. Our North American and Far East competitors are not weighed down by EU bureaucracy. Unhindered by the EU, our economy would expand far faster.
Free Trade Creates Jobs
Economies like the UK and the US that open themselves up to international competition benefit from it. They specialise in the things that they do best, and their industries are forced to innovate in order to survive. The EU has never understood this. France in particular tries to protect every industry threatened with international competition.
"The EU's Future Is Bleak - There's Nothing we can do about it" Who Says so? The EU itself.
All forecasts predict economic decline for the EU, but things are getting worse - the chart below comes from the European Commission itself. While Brussels says it is reducing bureaucracy, it brought in 3,350 new laws in the six months of the UK's Presidency - almost a record. Blaming red tape, Europe's biggest companies plan to make 40% of their investments outside the EU, so job losses due to our EU membership are about to increase.
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The EU share of world GDP is expected to decrease from 35% in 2002 to 15% in 2050. Its share of world trade is expected to decrease from 18% in 2002 to 10% in 2050.
The EU has been underperforming* and the decline is accelerating - a view shared, believe it or not, by Blair, Chirac, Schroeder, HM Treasury and the EU Commission. Even a French report states that the "EU will have an ever-decreasing influence - its chapter in world history will draw to a slow but inexorable close".
*OECD Economic Outlook, Real GDP Growth 1993-2003, indexed on 1993=100: Eurozone Average - 123; UK - 133; USA - 138; Canada - 141; ;Australia - 145.
By contrast the UK has been one of the world's most successful trading nations since global trade began. Our exports outside the EU grew 45% faster than exports to the EU in 1999-2005 (Source: UK Balance of Payments "Pink Book" statistics). Other parts of the world are growing faster and will cope with the future far better. The sooner we leave, the quicker we will recover. We must not be dragged down by the world's fastest declining block. Try to find evidence of any net economic benefit in remaining in the European Union. There is none.
We will Leave the European Union - when we see it for what it is.
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