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Mr Brown – Why Should the UK Remain in the EU?
July 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
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20 June 2008
Gordon Brown MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA
My letter to you about the UK’s membership of the EU dated May 13 has received a reply from a member of staff in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
I was under the impression that the normal convention was for Members of the European Parliament to receive answers from Ministers (as is the case for Members of the House of Commons).
The naivety and deliberately misleading nature of the reply I have received does not require any further response from me.
Meanwhile my original letter to you from May 13 stands and in case you no longer have one to hand the text is attached. Perhaps Mr Miliband can find the time to address these issues.
If so he should try to avoid the mistake made by Mr Barroso, who, when faced with the same question, directed me to answers on the Commissions’ website which are as much embarrassing as they are inadequate.
My exchange with Mr Barroso is also enclosed.
Ashley Mote MEP
Why Should the UK Remain a Member of the EU – Mark 2
Having reviewed the list of 50 claims made on the website mentioned in the president’s answer to my question E2823/08EN, may I ask which of them, precisely, could not have been achieved by willing sovereign governments negotiating and agreeing with each other directly?
Which of them, precisely, justifies the massive annual club subscription now paid by UK taxpayers; plus the 65 billion pounds sterling of compliance costs borne by British industry annually; and the tens of thousands of pages of regulations nobody in the UK ever voted for and which they managed very well without before the UK joined?
Would the president not agree that some of the 50 claims border on the embarrassingly laughable, were the consequences not so serious – a public holiday, an internet site, pet management, the Charter of Fundamental Rights which still has no legal base and was described by a UK government minister as no more important than a copy of the Beano?
Then there are the positively damaging claims – free movement of economic migrants which has swamped and severely damaged my constituency; deliberate confusion over emergency phone numbers; the creation of regions across national borders with no coherence or legitimacy and without the agreement or knowledge of the people who live there; the threat of foreign police on our streets; artificially higher food prices as a result of custom union tariffs; NATO’s status undermined; and the threat of being forced into a one-size-fits-all currency which suits almost none of the existing participants.
In the name of sanity, where are the benefits to the UK in any of those?
Answer given by Mr Barroso on behalf of the Commission
(9.7.2008)
The Commission has no further comment to add to the answer it gave to the Honourable Member’s previous written question E-2823/08.
AM comment: So that is the best the president of the European Commission can do in defence of his own institution and position as its leader. No further comment is necessary.
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