The danger and stupidity of the EU

Can I say at the begining of this post, that I am sorry for its layout, I have tried to split it into paragraphs but some reason my computer won't let me .Over the years I have sat and read, watched and listened to many politicians trying to justify some ridiculous policy or law that is being brought out. I have often wondered if they really believe what they are saying is right, and if they don't believe in it how do they sit there and speak as if they really think it is a good idea. I think this also applies to the EU and the constant erosion of our countries ability to control its own destiny and set its own laws. Most politicians, whatever you think of them are not stupid, and they must realise what is happening to this country, and because they are not stupid it concerns me that they are quite happy to sit and watch as we hand over more and more power to unelected individuals. We joined the Common Market in 1973 and since that time consecutive governments have lied to the British people, they have told us that the Common Market, EEC, EC and now the EU is a good thing for this country. But having spent a number of years of looking into the behaviour of this organisation and I have found there are very little benefits for us. So I wanted to look at two areas in which the EU affects us, and that is democracy (or rather lack of) and economically. I have written about these things before, but I wanted to put these two issues in one post so forgive me if I am repeating what I have said before. One of the things that I have written about before is the EU's total lack of democracy and there are reasons for this. Over the years the EU's leaders have shown their complete contempt for democracy, in 1990 they made the Danes vote again after they had a referendum and rejected the Maastricht Treaty. In 2001 the Irish voted in a referendum and rejected the Treaty of Nice and the EU made them vote again, and in October 2002 the Irish voted yes. In 2005 the French people rejected the EU Constitution in a referendum by 55 per cent to 45 per cent and the Dutch by an even bigger margin, by 61.6 per cent to 38.4 per cent. It was left to a Dublin Correspondent to the letters page of the Daily Telegraph, Jonathan Wilson, to sum up the likely outcome of these events. 'The French "non" will not stop the EU or even make it think again,' he wrote. 'The hallmark of the the EU is its contempt for democracy and the will of the people, which are viewed as inconvenient. The EU will push ahead regardless. When Ireland previously voted "no", we were, in effect, sent to bed without any supper and told to vote the correct way the next time, which, to our shame we did.' And of course he was right, The EU ignored the French and Dutch people and renamed the the EU Constitution the Lisbon Treaty and no country in Europe were allowed to have a referendum except little old Ireland, this is because their constitution has a clause in it which states any changes to the Irish constitution has to go before the people. So in 2008 the Irish voted "NO" and of course our EU leaders did not like this so they made the Irish vote again, the EU spent millions of Euros of taxpayers money on propaganda, and stupidly the Irish voted "yes". I have a question, what is the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship? Answer ,the government of a democracy rule with the consent of the people, in a dictatorship they do not. This sums up the EU and its contempt for the people of Europe!! Now to the economics of the EU, this is a massive subject and I could spend a long time on this subject, but I will try and be as brief as possible. In 1973 the 6 members of the Common Market and the United Kingdom made up about 35 per cent of the worlds GDP, since then it has diminished to between 15 and 18 per cent, it is expected to continue to fall to about 9 per cent by 2020. So the EU's importance as an economic block is gradually disappearing. As this continues to happen those who govern us seem to be living in a world completely separated from the real world. Their behaviour is very similar to the Tsar of Russia who in the early part of the 20th century ruled supremely but by 1917 was dead. They do not realise that the world is changing and they are not willing or able to see it. Over the past 40 years the EU has produced huge amounts of regulations, and the pace of this regulation has started to speed up. David Cameron spoke recently about reducing regulation and red tape for business, but quickly realised there was little he could do as the EU produces about 30 new pieces of regulation every single day. Recently the EU increased maternity and paternity leave for parents, this of course puts added pressure onto business, especially small and medium size businesses. At a time when many countries within Europe are struggling the EU are strangling them with red tape. We have the 'working time directive', limiting working time to a maximum of 48 hours a week, and I am sure if the EU bureaucrats had their way they would reduce that further. On top of this there are thousands of 'health and safety' regulations, one of these is the 'working at height regulations', I work for the fire service and we have been forced to adopt this piece of legislation, as you can imagine it is a nightmare to implement as my job is quite dynamic and it isn't always practical to wear a harness. Add to all this, we have environmental regulations governing CO2 emissions, which again is going to have a major impact upon our energy prices and ability to produce enough energy for our needs. On top of all of this the Euro is struggling, Greece and Ireland have had to go cap in hand to the European Central Bank (ECB) and they have been bailed out. Britain, even though it is not part of the Euro has had to dig deep and pay towards this bail out. Alastair Darling, just prior to leaving office signed us up to bailing out any EU country that gets into trouble. So when Portugal's economy implodes we will have to give them £7 billion. At the moment the ECB is buying Portuguese bonds on the stock market (because no one else wants them) trying to keep this from happening, but it won't work. In an ever changing world we need to be able to adapt and move with the times. In an ideal world we could all work 30 hours a week, have 10 weeks paid holiday, sick pay for as long as we needed, a lovely big pension when we retire, we could work in a totally safe environment away from any danger, we could produce enough energy through renewables, and everyone could have the job they want. But that isn't the reality, in many countries around the world they are seeing their economies grow and in the not too distant future they will grow bigger than ours, and whether we like it or not this world is changing and if we do not change and adapt our economies will continue to die and our wonderful standard of living will diminish. I know my postings are generally negative, but unfortunately this is the reality and those within the EU who govern us cannot see it. They are so wrapped up in the dream of a Europe ruled from Brussels they cannot see that they are building on very unstable ground and sooner or later it is going to come crashing down around them. Unfortunately before this happens we may well see internal strife within many countries, we will see people on the streets rioting, as is already happening in Greece. Many people within Europe are starting to wake up to the reality of the EU, I hope that soon more people realise that the EU does not care about them but only about ruling them and we will see this empire die like so many others.