5 More Common Arguments against the EU.

When I wrote my article on immigration and the European Union I recognised that my history of erratic posting schedules and my months of inactivity would significantly reduce the the potential viewership of the blog and harm my attempts to restart it, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that my article on the EU had gained a considerable amount of views and greatly contributed towards articles being created on a semi-regular basis (something that I seek to improve in the future), the combination of unexpected success and several heated arguments i've had with another group of eurosceptics has led me to write once more about EU myths.

1. The European Union is spending £300 million to spy on us with drones.

Whilst it is correct that the EU is funding the development of drones  they are not being researched to spy on individual citizens instead the focus of the project is strengthening current border security projects and saving the lives of migrants by creating a stable long-ranged unmanned vehicle that can patrol large areas of the coast and contact the appropriate authorities if they spot a vessel in trouble, something that should greatly reduce the tragic deaths of migrants attempting to flee violence, persecution and poverty at home. On top of these facts current legislative hurdles prevent them from being used to spy on EU citizens and any attempt to switch the focus of an EU drone project should be relatively easy to spot and campaign against.

2. The EU won't let us nationalise our railways!

A lie i've seen recently spread by eurosceptics is that EU Directive 91/440 makes it impossible for member states like the UK to nationalise its railway networks, a claim easily disproven by the existence of nationalised railway networks in France, Germany and other EU member States. The EU Directive in question just requires infrastructure and railway companies to be separate, a requirement that would be met by the UK retaining a nationalised network rail for infrastructure and a British Rail for commercial rail operations.

3. The EUSSR is just a communist/socialist plot to takeover the UK!

I'm still rather shocked that people seriously hold this position on the European Union but to those folks detached from reality I ask you to look at both the definition of communism and socialism and then try to make a connection to the European Union. You won't.

Communism - a stateless, moneyless society with no class system in which the means of production belong to the workers.
Socialism - democratic ownership of the means of production by the proletariat.

4. EU regulation damages our economy!

UKIP and eurosceptic Conservatives love to repeatedly claim that regulation enforced by the European Union is not only harmful to the economy but also to the population and while they can tout a report by the Chamber of Commerce and other organisations that states regulation costs the UK economy several billion pounds a year they fail to take into consideration data that promotes the resulting trade and direct investment that comes with EU membership, the validity of these sources and the timeline it covers.

British companies also benefit from the establishment of a single-regulatory system across the EU as they know with confidence that services and goods produced across the continent don't need to be adapted to suit dozens of localised regulations that would usually hamper the effectiveness of commerce. Individuals also see positive results from regulation passed in Brussels with EU wide legislation regarding tariffs and equality in the workplace making it easier for Brits to both visit and work abroad.

5. We're being dictated to by Brussels!

Another tidbit of misinformation being widely spread is that a majority of our laws (70% according to some) are designed in Brussels and not in Westminster and that in order to save democracy as we know it and British sovereignty we must leave the EU at once. It is rather shameful and indicative of our mainstream media that such a bald faced lie is not immediately jumped upon with the news presenter providing the viewer with the real figure and asking the person making the claim what fantasy world they pulled the 70% figure from, sadly instead of doing this the misinformation cycle continues and skews opinion polls with only dedicated political channels attempting to counter it. We need a mainstream media that is not afraid to tackle misinformation from guests and attacks politics from all sides with data relevant to the discussion. Only then can we have a truly informed electorate.

Why is foreign aid an easy target?

UKIP and the Daily Mail have recently started a campaign to force the government to divert funds currently being used for foreign aid to pay for damages caused by the horrific floods that have devastated our country in recent months, but why is foreign aid seemingly the first to be sent towards the firing squad? The Guardian recently posed this exact question in a comments article I thought it justified a small response.

Whilst searching for information on the floods and opinions on the governments handling of the disaster on social media I came across multiple opinions on why foreign aid should be diverted to pay for the cost of repairing infrastructure and housing and I shall respond to some of the most common arguments I saw posted. Foreign Aid is often attacked by self-confessed nationalists as putting foreigners ahead of our own citizens, an attack that is completely nonsensical as it seems to negate the fact that the remaining majority of our budget is spent on our own population, it seems to be nothing more than failed nationalist dogma that quickly falls apart under scrutiny, another attack more commonly seen and supported by a portion of the mainstream media is that money is being spent on countries that don't deserve it, a great example of this being India who currently have a minor space program. The justification for cuts being that if the Indian government can afford a national space program then it can afford for the welfare of its own citizens and whilst that might be true in a perfect world the reality is that British efforts in India have had a visible benefit  to the country and this argument will soon disappear as funding for India is cut in 2015

Lastly one of most misinformative but sadly frequent arguments against foreign aid is that it does not do anything worthwhile. Decades worth of depressing images from the African continent by the mainstream media have given the British public the misconception that nothing has changed when that is opposite from the truth, with everything from infant mortality, malaria infection rates and deaths from preventable illnesses like diarrhoea reduced significantly in recent years thanks to the contribution of foreign aid.  In conclusion misinformation and misguided nationalist rhetoric has led to the call for foreign aid to be scrapped and the mainstream media should address this concern instead of feeding into it, as for funding flood relief efforts? Clamping down on tax avoidance, cutting trident or short-term borrowing would provide the funds without cutting an invaluable service.

Immigration in the UK

The removal of immigration restrictions from Romania and Bulgaria following both countries full ascension to the European Union has reignited the political debate over immigration with supporters of UKIP and more rebellious parts of the Conservative Party targeting the amounts of immigrants that come into the UK from the European Union as part of a strong anti-EU campaign, seemingly blaming them from everything to a lack of employment, the poor state of local government services, infrastructures and the current state of our educational and health service, but is this conservative rhetoric supported by data? Are they an unfair burden to the taxpayer that should be clamped down upon or are they a welcome reprieve to our governments treasury balance? Research recently carried out by the Centre of Research and Analysis of Migration partly answers that question and seems to completely disprove this anti-immigration rhetoric with the university study concluding that on average from 2000-2011 EU immigrants actually provided the UK treasury with more in taxes then they take in return for welfare payments and social housing, the report even going as far to say that non-EU immigrants contributed slightly more in taxes for the amount of benefits they received with recent numbers showing an equality with British workers during the same time period. 

So then why is current public opinion seemingly weighted against immigration even from the European Union? The answer to that question lies with our nations mainstream media with right-wing outlets like the Daily Mail and the Daily Star frequently running articles that severely demonize the immigrant community and help spread a false perception that immigrants rely on benefits and get access to superior social housing before anyone else when the reality is quite the opposite. If Pro-EU institutions wish to see our country remain inside the EU then they must win the propaganda battle against their opposite numbers and counter these ingrained beliefs with energetic enthusiasm and the confident use of current data.