OK, so - this has been in the news a bit recently, but I think not many people quite or fully understand why the UK's membership of the EU is so important. A great reason for me to step in and explain it in layman's lingo.
So, the European Union is a politico-economic union, of 28 countries in and around Europe (obvious, I know!). Basically, it's 28 countries, including the UK getting together for free trade between each other and "communal politics", for want of a better turn of phrase.
As it says on the EU's website: "The first steps were to foster economic cooperation: the idea being that countries who trade with one another become economically interdependent and so more likely to avoid conflict... a huge single market has been created and continues to develop towards its full potential."
But since its creation as the European Economic Community in 1958, the EU's become more political than economical, hence the name change to the European Union as more countries have joined, and it's acknowledged that, admitting to have "evolved into an organisation spanning policy areas, from development aid to environment... The EU is based on the rule of law: everything that it does is founded on treaties, voluntarily and democratically agreed by all member countries."
But we're not interested in what the EU's about. This is about whether or not we want to stay in the EU, and the first thing that comes to mind is the COST of being a member of the EU club.
Now, Nigel Farage claimed that membership was costing us £55 million a DAY, to the tune of approximately £20 billion a year. Now, if this was the case, then we'd have every right to demand a discount considering the economical blackhole every country's trying to plug.
But, while it's fair enough to describe our contributions to the EU as a "membership fee", this actually doesn't exist. Yes, there is NO SUCH THING as an EU membership fee. Instead, again from the EU's website, the funding for the EU is made up of three main sources:
1) A percentage of gross national income. This is a small percentage, estimated as "usually around 0.7%", and "contributed by all EU countries [as] the largest source of budget revenue".
2) 0.3% of standardised value-added tax or VAT revenue, from each EU country, and
3) A large share of import duties on non-EU products, although "the country that collects the duty retains a small percentage".
So, the amount we pay to the EU does vary from year to year. And Farage was right about us paying £55 million a day - though that's the figure from 3 years ago. In 2012, we paid about £20 billion to various EU institutions. But on balance, we usually pay on the order of £12 billion a year - or, in Farage's terms, £33 million a day. And what he forgot to mention was that, through rebate, we DO get some of that money back, which means we technically pay less.
Another reason Cameron is trying to renegotiate our treaty with the EU, though, is that they're being incredibly pushy on what we can and can't do politically.
According to the Daily Mail (no, I don't read them all the time; trying to get a broad range of sources, here!), some of the areas he's trying to renegotiate are:
1) Workers from the EU - "no in work benefits [or] social housing until they have been in Britain for 4 years, [and] no child benefits or tax credits paid for children living outside the UK"
2) Unemployed EU migrants - "No support from the UK tax-payer, [and] deportation if they do not get a job after six months."
3) "Impose restrictions on EU migrants bringing in family members from outside the EU. Longer bans on rough sleepers, beggars and fraudsters returning to the UK [and] tougher rules on deporting foreign criminals, [as well as] refusing to allow other countries to join the EU without imposing controls on the movement of their workers until their economies have reached UK levels."
Now, apart from that last point, most of this applies to our every day lives directly. And it's fair to say that renegotiating is a good thing - if there's something to be gained. And Cameron clearly thinks there's a fair bit to be gained.
And I think that the EU needs to back off just a bit. It was created for economical support, not for deciding how green our vegetables need to be, or how big rhubarb has to be before it gets imported and exported and all of that.
Plus, it can't really penalise the UK for having a fast growing economy when countries that actually use the euro - anyone thinking of Spain, Greece or Italy? - are practically sliding down a slippery slope labelled "DEBT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Basically, the UK isn't really technically part of the EU. I'm not just talking geographically - did anybody notice the Channel, even if we're still sitting on the Eurasian tectonic plate - and we're kind of renowned historically for the biggest middle finger to Europe when a certain fat king told an old man in a dress he'd marry whoever he damn pleased.
I'm just saying that we're a bit too separated from the EU for the EU to turn into a bossy, overprotective mother. And, for all you people who want to check my facts, here's the guys I "talked to":
https://fullfact.org/economy/cost_eu_membership_gross_net_contribution-30887
http://europa.eu/index_en.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3106092/Cameron-use-referendum-permanently-dock-Britain-Brussels-claims-EU-chief-Jean-Claude-Juncker.html#ixzz3bzu2aT8x
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