British Democracy Forum - View Single Post - UKIP "a honeytrap to neutralise activists"

blank_frackis · 22-05-2007, 10:19 PM

I don't want to attack a man personally, but to say that most of these claims are true is a stretch. Take the claim that "EU regulation costs the UK £100 billion a year". The source given for this is the Better Regulation Commission's 2005 report which makes no such claim, they state that "regulation" (not EU regulation) costs Britain £100 billion a year and moreover this figure is not the cost of inefficient regulation, it includes things like the minimum wage which are conscious policy decisions where regulation costs have been weighed up against the supposedly social good which is achieved from such policies.

This needn't be said, anyone even vaguely familiar with the scale of the British economy knows that losing £100 billion from EU regulation a year would be an economic catastrophe which would bankrupt the country within 5 years. The claim is either dishonestly sourced, or Mr Noakes hasn't actually read the report he's referring to. This is not a coherent eurosceptic campaign, it's the spread of misinformation that has the longevity of, well... however long it takes for someone to type "Better Regulation Commission 2005 report" into google. Here's the link if anyone wants to see this for themselves, you don't have to look far as the claim is in the second paragraph -

http://www.brc.gov.uk/downloads/pdf/designdelivery.pdf

UKIP is a professional political party, with properly sourced claims and coherent arguments which are based on the interpretation of facts. Most of the claims in this "fifty reasons to leave the EU" are either meaningless slander such as "the EU is a police state" which can't really be debated, or are based on factual errors which can be demonstrated inside of 5 mouse clicks. I have no ill feeling towards eurosceptic campaigns, a genuinely reasoned eurosceptic position is as noble as a reasoned argument to stay in the European Union and both have a place in our political discourse, but whilst UKIP provides such a service, this "eutruth" stuff, however well meaning, falls far short of the basic political standards necessary for a movement to appear credible. I have no reason to hold any positive bias towards UKIP so take that for what it's worth.

22-05-2007, 10:19 PM	#21 (permalink)
blank_frackis Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 310 $blank_frackis is just starting out$	I don't want to attack a man personally, but to say that most of these claims are true is a stretch. Take the claim that "EU regulation costs the UK £100 billion a year". The source given for this is the Better Regulation Commission's 2005 report which makes no such claim, they state that "regulation" (not EU regulation) costs Britain £100 billion a year and moreover this figure is not the cost of inefficient regulation, it includes things like the minimum wage which are conscious policy decisions where regulation costs have been weighed up against the supposedly social good which is achieved from such policies. This needn't be said, anyone even vaguely familiar with the scale of the British economy knows that losing £100 billion from EU regulation a year would be an economic catastrophe which would bankrupt the country within 5 years. The claim is either dishonestly sourced, or Mr Noakes hasn't actually read the report he's referring to. This is not a coherent eurosceptic campaign, it's the spread of misinformation that has the longevity of, well... however long it takes for someone to type "Better Regulation Commission 2005 report" into google. Here's the link if anyone wants to see this for themselves, you don't have to look far as the claim is in the second paragraph - http://www.brc.gov.uk/downloads/pdf/designdelivery.pdf UKIP is a professional political party, with properly sourced claims and coherent arguments which are based on the interpretation of facts. Most of the claims in this "fifty reasons to leave the EU" are either meaningless slander such as "the EU is a police state" which can't really be debated, or are based on factual errors which can be demonstrated inside of 5 mouse clicks. I have no ill feeling towards eurosceptic campaigns, a genuinely reasoned eurosceptic position is as noble as a reasoned argument to stay in the European Union and both have a place in our political discourse, but whilst UKIP provides such a service, this "eutruth" stuff, however well meaning, falls far short of the basic political standards necessary for a movement to appear credible. I have no reason to hold any positive bias towards UKIP so take that for what it's worth.
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