Arithmetic for Dummies – a Brexit Primer…
As each day passes someone else joins the “fear” campaign, trying to scare the great unwashed into remaining in the EU rather than “risk” the alternative.
Yesterday we were treated to interventions from France’s Hollande (who had funnily enough just stepped out of a meeting with Cameron – “nous sommes sur la valise mon brave” as he wandered out to share his newly acquired thoughts with the assembled journos). Then there was much press comment on Boris’ younger (upstart) brother pitching in with his 2p worth ( this does remind TheStickler of the niceties observed between the brothers Milliband a few years back ) as he argued that Britain’s role as a science superpower would vanish if we left the EU. And finally we had people claiming that the European Investment Bank (EIB) was responsible for, and indispensable to, numerous large scale infrastructure projects in and around our capital and beyond.
Boris was in the hot seat at People’s Question Time last night in Croydon. He made several excellent points in isolation, but if you join them up it’s perhaps even more revealing:
1. The UK pays substantially more into the pot than it gets back.
2. The EU decides how such funds as come back to us are spent, even here in the UK which provided the cash in the first place!
3. The EIB has indeed funded major projects, and offers an excellent low interest rate for its funding. So the EU is charging us interest (albeit at a low rate) on our own cash.
Surely the answer is to stop paying the money to the EU and disburse it ourselves? The new UK Investment Bank could have a pot equal to the share of the EIB we’ve been allocated in the past, and it could have a similar (or even lower) interest rate – which is presumably there to cover its operating costs?
There would still be a healthy balance left for other sources of funding which would be lost at Brexit, such as the Common Agricultural Policy (which pays us little these days anyway?) and the like…
https://fullfact.org/economy/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/
The argument that somehow we will lose funding through Brexit is specious. Here are the figures for EIB funding to the UK in 2014 (2015 do not seem to be available as yet)…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4489efe0-97e9-11e3-8dc3-00144feab7de.html#axzz41vwBcjFy
So we have £13bn going into the pot, and £4.5-5bn coming back. This assumes that the UK continues to get its rebate, otherwise payments in would increase from £13bn to £18bn. Who decides whether we get that rebate? The member states. So we’re at their mercy to be nice to us and any time the coffers are low that could end.
The Stickler feels that on the basis of the numbers above Brexit would offer:
1. An immediate gain to the Exchequer of at least £8bn, which if the rebate were revoked could rise to £13bn.
2. The ability to spend UK money on UK projects under UK control.
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