blank_frackis

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.

eublues

There have been several estimates of the costs of EU membership being up to 100 million, certainly when including taking account of 'lost opportunity' factors. However, DN does need to ensure that strong claims are accurately explained and sourced. I wouldn't myself give much credence to the 'Better Regulation Commission'.

blank_frackis

We're not saying £100 million here though (at least that's in the realms of reality) we're saying £100 billion - i.e. something like 10% of our GDP.

eublues

My mistake: I meant 100 billion. This is a bit less than 10% of GDP, and that the EU is costing us something like that would not surprise me (about £1660 per person).

blank_frackis

A debate over the actual costs of EU regulation is for a different thread perhaps, but my main point is that the figure has been taken from a report which doesn't make that claim. It's clearly written in the report that the figure is for regulation as a whole, the report itself isn't even about the European Union. Here's the text -

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

davidnoakes

blank_frackis
Better Regulation Commission Annual Report 2005 (BRTF). Yes I've read it, yes it says total cost of regulations is 100 billion, or 9% of our economy.

But in your love of the EU dictatorship you'll say anything.

There are now over 111,000 EU regulations passed by Westminster as Orders in Council. There are under 2,000 British regulations. EU ones arrive at the rate of 3,500 a year.

So British regs are under 2% of the 100 billion.

The EU commission says EU regs typically take 12% of GDP in member states which backs up the 9% and 100 billion figure.

Its all on eutruth.org.uk; click the 200bn cost of the EU on the left.

You may suffer badly in the EU police state you defend so strongly. The initial supporters of a fascist regime generally do.

David Noakes

blank_frackis

Two points David. Firstly, you didn't state the above argument in your list, you stated that the figure given in the report was for EU regulation. Even if 99.99999% of the regulations referenced in the report stemmed from the EU you should still have explained that in your list. I'm not going to hammer that point because it's a question of proper sourcing as opposed to anything else and given that my aim is not to argue against you as an individual, or your website per se it would be a little pointless to debate that in any detail. However, needless to say, it would be in your own interest to properly source your arguments.

Secondly and more importantly, the costs of regulation stemming from a particular source are not determined by the raw number of regulations made. Take the minimum wage for instance - which is included in the Better Regulation Commission's figure - this counts, in your calculation, as "one regulation" yet it is of massive significance to regulation costs in the UK. To compare that on the same footing as some obscure EU regulation about the correct classification of pine nuts (for instance), or indeed some obscure British regulation, is an exercise in confusion. It tells you little if anything about how much the two sources of regulation cost the British economy.

Moreover the figures you've just given are actually contradicted in the BRC's report itself. They put the amount of "new EU legislation which has a significant effect on business" (not the raw number of regulations, but "legislation" encompasses regulations and everything else) at 'only' 50%* -

Indeed there are vast problems with making such an estimate in the first place because the dividing line between which regulations originate in Brussels and which originate in Westminster is blurred. So too, is the actual cost of a single regulation, far less the cost of all regulations to the UK. The fact that the BRC can even arrive at such a figure is remarkable in my opinion.

Now with that said, if you want to debate the question of how much EU regulations cost the British economy, do you have any sources which state that the figure is £100 billion? The largest estimate I have ever read came from the Bruges Group and they put it at £20 billion.


*I say "only" in reference to your 98%, but I'm sure most people would agree that 50% is a lot.

davidnoakes

blank_frackis" said:

"Even if 99.99999% of the regulations referenced in the report stemmed from the EU you should still have explained that in your list. it would be in your own interest to properly source your arguments."

Thank you for the duplicity in your arguments.
So it is brief enough for people to read, I don't go into pedantic detail and pages of proof with every point. You don't either. None of us can, and it is deceptive for you to pretend I should.

Instead I referred you to the proof, and note you didn't bother to read it as asked, - the eutruth website (200bn Cost of EU) where this is sourced.

"the costs of regulation stemming from a particular source are not determined by the raw number of regulations made. Take the minimum wage"

Take the EU Health and safety quango. £2.5 billion spent in their first year and 42,000 staff employed. The figure now must be astonomical.

We had a handful of quangos before we joined the EU 35 years ago. Now we have 8,500 spending £124 billion pa according to Blair's Cabinet Office. 2/3 of these implement EU regulations, and that does'nt count the main part of the cost - the cost to industry.

I say again 111,000 versus 2000.

I note you conveniently ignore the EU Commissions quote that EU regs cost around 12% of GDP in Member states - that's about £145 billion in our case.

BRC: "an estimated 50% of all new legislation with a significant impact on UK business comes from the EU. The Task Force also wished to support the UK Presidency and to contribute to EU efforts to reform the way it regulates."

Ask any businessman whose business has been shut by EU regs or his profitability cut to nothing since we joined the EU in 1972 and he'll tell you that's a lie by the BRC. They admit in the next sentence they said that to support the UK Presidency of the EU.

"Now with that said, if you want to debate the question of how much EU regulations cost the British economy, do you have any sources which state that the figure is £100 billion? The largest estimate I have ever read came from the Bruges Group and they put it at £20 billion."

No, you are misleading us again. You say £20 billion - you quoted the BRC at 50% of £100 billion in your last pragraph. So its £50 billion in your own admission.

I have proved, as conclusively as possible given our government and the EU don't publish and deliberately conceal the figure, for the second time here, that EU regs cost our economy over £100 billion.

Blank_Fracis, you work through misprepresentation, concealment and stealth. You are a true EU Citizen.

I cannot understand how you support the of handing nuclear weapons to the unelected EU dictatorship, and the war that guarantees, Or your own life under a computerised persecution police state, with 111,000 regulations that will create a command economy and therefore poverty.

If you don't make it into the EU ruling class, (and in the early stages of all dictatorships they turn against their own first,) your life will be continual arrests and abject misery.

You've earned it.

David Noakes.

blank_frackis

You don't need to go into pedantic detail, but there is a clear and obvious difference between going into excessive detail and giving a report as your source for a claim when the report makes no such claim. I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for saying the report says "EU regulation costs us £100 billion" when it explicitly states that the figure is for general regulations. The two things are fundamentally different and at best that's sloppy referencing, at worst it's dishonest. I'm not going to tell you my background, but believe me, if you did that in a 'real' political situation and not simply on a message board then any validity your arguments may have would be completely ignored. Now I'm not going to continue with that point, or try and portray you as a liar or other such nonsense, I'm just asking that you take that point on good faith.

No I've not been on your website, I'll look at it later when I have time.

The point isn't that British regulations or EU regulations cost more per se, it's that focusing on the raw number of regulations is completely misleading. You're classing regulations that have a massive impact financially on the same footing as regulations which have absolutely no impact on the economy. It's impossible to draw any conclusions from such an analysis. If you want to make the case that EU regulations cost the country more than British regulations then this has to be done directly - i.e. by assessing the actual costs of the relevant regulations, not simply saying "there are more EU regulations therefore they have a greater cost to the economy". That's what I'm asking you for - do you have any sources which make this argument? If they're on your website can you give me a direct link?

Of course they are willing to support the efforts of the UK and the EU, their aim is to reduce the costs of regulation and, whether we agree with it or not, the EU makes regulations which have an impact on our economy. As for the claim itself, whether it's accurate or not is up for debate, but the primary reason I'm using it is that it's your own source.

I've said three or four times in this thread that the raw number of regulations does not determine how much they cost the economy. The fact that the BRC report states that 50% of legislation which has a significant effect on business comes from the EU, does not equal them saying that 50% of the costs of regulation as a whole stems from the EU. Nor did I say whether I agree with the BRC or the Bruges Group in the first place, in fact I strongly disagree with the Bruges Group's estimate for numerous reasons.

Of course I don't support the handing of nuclear weapons over to "the EU dictatorship" (what is this incidentally, the Commission? You never actually explain what you're referring to when you make that comment), I've tried to explain to you on numerous occasions now that nobody is handing nuclear weapons over to the EU, nobody is calling for them to be handed over and that the reason you believe this is happening is that you've misread the draft constitution. I'm sorry, I don't have the motivation to try and go over that again, if you believe that the "EU dictatorship" is going to steal all of our nuclear weapons and our military in 2009, then I'll leave you to think that. In two years time you can see for yourself what the situation is.

davidnoakes

blank_frackis said:
"Of course I don't support the handing of nuclear weapons over to "the EU dictatorship" (what is this incidentally, the Commission? You never actually explain what you're referring to when you make that comment),"

How dishonest
I explained in my reply to you on that subject specifically and extensively on 18th and 22nd May on the "Fifty reasons to leave the EU" thread, and quoted Constitution clauses 1-16-1: I-41-3: 1-41-3 I-41-4. You replied extensively, and I replied again.

There really is no need to lie.

And you do support the EU, in every posting, and if you support the EU you support its Constitution, which will hand all our military and nuclear Weapons to the EU.

You either don't understand what it is you are supporting, or you do support handing our nuclear weapons to the EU.

No matter what proof is offered, you stonewall

You are a model EU citizen - stonewalling, dishonesty, wasting time, slowing us down, a good subversive..


David Noakes.