It’s very simple. The EU costs a lot of money and has no benefits. In a cost/benefit analysis, there are no benefits. The costs are billions of pounds per year, and more. My argument therefore will not focus on the costs, but demonstrate that there are no benefits.

What is the purpose of the EU?

Ask a different person, get a different answer. Not even the EU itself knows. I will go through all the answers I have heard, and debunk them.

1. Stopping Wars

“Internal cooperation prevents conflicts”, “Unity against an external threat”

The idea is that unifying Europe, either symbolically, or really unifying into a single state, would reduce the probability of war.

A single state would indeed stop wars between states, there being no separate states to war, but may encourage civil wars. However, it does not look like the EU will become a single state any time soon, and this would be a bad idea anyway: extending the power of a massively corrupt and unaccountable organisation would not be good for democracy.

As it exists at the moment, the EU has no effect on stopping wars. Rather like an anti-tiger pebble (”I don’t see any tigers. The pebble must be working”). Europe is rather different now compared to sixty years ago. Does anyone seriously believe that abolishing the EU, or the UK withdrawing from it, will increase the probability of war in Western Europe at all? The probability of war in Western Europe is practically zero. What would anyone gain from war? States have become more democratic, and people have realised that wars don’t make them better off, unlike trade, which does. Nowadays, we don’t have wars: we trade. Either way, the EU has no effect.

2. Common control over resources

The EU grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was intended to establish common control over resources. Nowadays, people have realised governments should not be the major players in commerce. Resources should be privately controlled, not government controlled. And in the EU, they mostly are anyway. This argument is also out of date.

3. A single currency

Whether we should join the Euro or not is not a simple topic (I want a fixed money supply, with a mint but no central bank, so I don’t want to join the Euro because it is just like our current currency, but we wouldn’t control the central bank). I shall only say that states which did not join have performed better since. We are not members of the Euro at the moment, so leaving the EU would not affect us in this respect.

4. “Economic stability”, “Economic security”

I do not see how the EU is supposed to contribute to economic stability. This argument seems to be rather like the argument that the EU prevents wars. Does anyone really think people will become uncertain about the UK economy if we leave the EU? We trade comfortably with the rest of the world already.

5. “Political cohesion”

Another vague advantage. What exactly is “political cohesion” and what’s good about it? Could we have an example?

6. A “counterbalance to US power”, “Participation in an emerging political bloc”

Do you mean an economic or military counterbalance?

If you mean an economic counterbalance, then I respond that this is not necessary. People who use phrases like “the EU should be a major player in world economics” don’t understand economics. Commerce is performed by individuals and companies, not states or blocs of states. It makes no difference whether those individuals and companies are in a single country, a group of countries, or a super-state. Governments should not be “players” in economics: they should leave that to private individuals and companies. It makes no difference to trade whether it occurs within or across arbitrary lines on a map.

Why exactly do we need to “counterbalance” the US economy? What do you mean by “counterbalance”? Governments should want to improve the wealth of their citizens. It just doesn’t matter how much people in America earn compared to people in Europe. And how does the EU function as this “counterbalance”? It doesn’t, because the phrase is meaningless.

If you mean a military counterbalance, then why do you want this? To rival the US or China as a superpower, the cost would require pooling of resources: you would need a single European army.

Why would you want to be a superpower? How would a more powerful army improve the life of people in the UK? Europe and the UK have been entirely unaffected by America’s dominance. Nowadays armies are merely for defence. “Political blocs” are increasingly irrelevant to peoples’ lives, and rightly so: trade is what improves people’s lives.

7. A single foreign policy

This would entail a foreign policy which sometimes does not benefit the UK, and sometimes does. If it did, we would have done it anyway, and if it didn’t, we would be better off without a single foreign policy.

“A single foreign policy” is often construed to mean we would have more negotiating clout as one bloc. But why would this be the case? It wouldn’t.

8. Free movement of the factors of production

Labour and capital are free to move within the EU (land isn’t, obviously).

Capital flows could be allowed without EU membership: allowing free trade doesn’t require membership of an organisation costing billions of pounds. The UK would just abolish all taxes on imports and exports because this would be in the interests of UK citizens. Other countries will realise it is in the interests of their citizens to also abolish all taxes on international trade.

Concerning immigration to the UK, I will argue in another post that control of immigration (i.e. not free movement of labour) is necessary to reduce the UK population, and that we should aim to do this. It is in Britain’s interest to only allow as much immigration as emigration, and pick the most skilled workers.

Concerning emigration, this should be left up to other countries. They will do what is in their interests.

9. Free movement of tourists

Free movement of tourists to and from the UK can be established without membership of the EU. It is already possible to travel to many countries outside the EU without applying for a visa in advance - why should it be any different when we are not a member of the EU?

10. “Harmonisation” or consistent regulations

Having the same regulations in EU states is unnecessary, as shown by trade with countries outside the EU proceeding just fine. If country A has a regulation, then it is the responsibility of firm in country B to conform to that regulation if it wants to sell in country A. There is no need to for country B to have the regulation as well.

11. The CAP ensures self-sufficiency.

This is unnecessary. If there really was a war (!), it would not be difficult to grow enough food to survive, assuming that the population density is not too high. It is the responsibility of governments to ensure it does not get too high. In any case, if there really was a war (!), and even assuming it was not a war within Europe (!), we would not be able to rely on importing food from within Europe. Britain is an island, and this has always protected us. We will need enough space to grow our own food whether we are members of the EU or not. In the mean time, we should buy our food from wherever it is cheapest, just like we should buy everything else.

If you have heard more claimed justifications for the existence of the EU, please add them to the comments.

Costs of the EU

• The EU is essentially a protectionist, anti-free-trade, anti-globalisation organisation. It is a hangover from before the 1980s, when policy-makers finally realised that production should be left to the market. Rather than facilitating trade, it makes it harder. It puts ring around an arbitrary group of countries: The external tariff on all imports from outside the EU increases living costs for people in the EU. It stops goods being made in countries which may have a comparative advantage in them, both inside and outside the EU. It causes allocative inefficiency. The EU should have nothing to do with commerce. Free trade requires the absence of subsidies, tariffs and treaties. We should trade with everyone, not just other members of the EU.

• The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) costs billions of pounds subsidising European farms. This drives up food prices for people (hitting the poorest most), prevents food being grown where it is most efficient (i.e. outside the EU), and stunts growth in countries outside the EU (e.g. in Africa). All subsidies should be abolished: abolishing or withdrawing from the EU is a good step towards this.

• The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) allows overfishing. The UK should instead extend property rights: they should auction fishing rights in UK waters to private companies (with a requirement for environmental responsibility and prevention of overfishing), for them to sell on to fishermen from any country.

• Excessive regulation for no good reason is estimated to stunt growth by tens of billions of pounds per year (see below).

• Europeanisation of our law: erosion of protections of liberty such as habeas corpus and presumption of innocence.

There are other colossal problems with the EU. The staggering, almost unbelievable scale of fraud, the wasted money on projects such as the “Galileo” satellites, the cost of maintaining a pointless parliament building in Strasbourg. However, none of these are important to my argument. Even if they could be fixed (I believe the EU is unreformable), the EU would still serve no purpose and would therefore be a waste of money.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned loss of political sovereignty and “threats to our cultural identity”. I do not need to. I do not need to labour the disadvantages of the EU because any disadvantage outweighs no advantages.

Could the UK withdraw from the EU?

Of course it could, and those who claim it would be impossible are merely creating fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in the minds of the public. It would be easy. The European Communities Act would be repealed. The UK would stop paying money to the EU, and that would be it.

Money

Membership of the EU costs the UK at least £5 billion cash per year, not counting other costs such as bureaucracy (valued at billions). At present the UK spends £42.5 billion on secondary schools. £5 billion would fund hundreds of pounds more per pupil. If Gordon Brown really wants to bring state spending on education up to the levels of private spending, withdrawing from the EU and spending the money on something that does any good would be a start.

The Bruges Group (I recommend you read their report in full) calculates that membership stunts economic growth by a staggering £60.1 billion per year (”How much does the European Union cost Britain?”, 2007), including costs of over-regulation and CAP. Withdrawing from the EU would make everyone in the UK an average of £1000 richer per year. Even if you doubt these costs, you must concede that any cost is too much for an organisation with no benefits.

The EU is entirely pointless. It has no purpose. There are no advantages to membership. It does nothing that the UK government could not do without expensive membership. It is money down the drain, and we should withdraw immediately.