Broker in the costs to us of the C.A.P., add on the costs of regulation and absurd compliances. Do not forget rakeoffs from VAT!
Just how much the annual costs are of EU membership is unclear - but take a long hard breath. Are you ready? - Well The Taxpayers' Alliance says that the overall costs are a staggering £120 BILLION annually. The Bruges Group has said that annual costs cannot be under £56 billion and have listed the spends - probably to a large extent by using the government's own 'Pink Book'.
The incalculables in all of this are the costs to business (and therefore, pretty directly to the consumer).
It seems unlikely that our annual membership could possibly drain the nation of less than a £100 billion.
Sadly, quitting the EU will not resolve this in its entirety as so many laws, rules, regulations and directives are now in place that it will probably take a generation to deregulate all the rubbish and identify which bits (there are a few - honestly!) which need to be kept.
For example. A regulation designed to make olive growing more effective is obviously nonsense for a grower of cox's orange pippins. Tragically - this is one of the kind of areas where EU bureaucrats have been absurdly simplistic and totally undiscriminating.Let us have a clear - and very public - Cost Benefit Analysis of the whole shebang. Europhiles - already a breed in some decline - could then be added to lists of endangered species in the UK.
Er. I hesitate to remind voters but UKIP has been 100% right all along!
