Don't Vote Because of Sensational Headlines

The last thing that I want any one to do is to vote one way or the other because of some scary headline. Which ever way you are voting in June please ignore the headlines and  look at the facts.

The most recent misleading headline I have seen states that Over 50  EU Criminals were let in to the country and they then committed more crimes over here. Now that does sound really bad in fact, maybe its time to leave the UK before we are over run by criminals from Europe! 

Well no its not. For starters in a three year period 09/10-12/13 over 500 criminals left the UK And Entered Europe. That means that we are loosing more criminals to Europe than we are gaining. At this point please note that in the very flashy shocking  news story about these 50 criminals nowhere did it mention over what period of time they entered the UK. I suspect it was similar to the period I mentioned above. (even if those 50 came within one year we would still be loosing more criminals than we were gaining.)

That is just one example of a headline that misleads you completely. And unfortunately both sides play that game. The important thing to remember is  don't vote on a headline. If you see a story in the paper I always find it interesting to find out what the opposite opinion is to the story. It soon becomes clear what is factual and what is just a sensational headline to draw in readers!

How big is the EU Budget?

Not very big is the simple answer!

The EU budget compared to most of the EU countries budgets is relatively small. For the 2014 financial year the total budget was €143 billion. In pounds at today’s exchange rate that is roughly £112 billion pounds. That at a glance looks like an enormous amount of money to ordinary people like you and I. But let’s compare it to the UK Government budget.

The UK Governments budget is over £750 billion! That means that the UKs budget could pay for the entire European Union entity nearly 7 times! Or if you like percentages the European Unions total budget is only around 15% of the UK Governments total budget.

Before we go any further here are a few vital bits of information about the EU and how it affects the UK.

1.      The UK rebate reimburses the UK by 66% of the difference between the revenue provided by the UK and the expenditure received by the UK.

2.      Approximately 94% of the EU budget funds programmes and projects both within member states and outside the EU.^[23] Approximately 6% of the budget is used for administrative costs, and less than 3% is spent on EU civil servants' salaries.

Although pro exit campaigners will try to blind you by how much it costs us and how big the budget is. These things always need to be put in to comparison. The UK spends roughly £18 billion on its EU membership and reclaims around half of that through farmers and projects.

So the UKs net expenditure to the EU is £9 billion which equates to 1.2% of the total UK government budget!

The real question we should be asking is not shall we leave the EU but where the hell is the rest of the money going!  

Our Green Bits

Finally now I have time to write again!

This time I am going to talk about natural habitat and wild life. Currently the EU funds hundreds of different projects across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Projects that draw in expertise and experience from countries all across Europe. If we leave the EU we will lose this vital cross country collaboration which enables countries to solve and prevent common threats to our natural heritage.

Take for example one project I have worked on. There are 14 different partners from 8 different countries. The projects aim is to research the benefits of a nature strip around farmers’ fields. The idea being that the more natural predators to farmer’s crops there are the less pesticides that need to be used.

Given how aggressive pesticide producing companies can be it would be nearly impossible for a single country to undertake this kind of research on its own. However a combined approach from all these countries provides a powerful team who can find the best way for farmers to produce the crops without being bullied by aggressive companies.

The benefits of working with other countries are that often they have already faced similar threats and know the best way or at least a way to prevent it. Loosing this valuable avenue of information and experience will set our natural habitats back by decades.

This one issue is probably not high on the agenda for most voters but it should be. Our environment is important not just for farmers but for healthy living and tourism.