Actually, your point, in my opinion, illustrates why so much "anti statist" rhetoric is another example of inappropriately blaming something abstract for a country's woes. The fact we have 635 MP's is a really good thing rather than a negative, ie linking the representative to a relatively small number of voters directly,and the constituency system aids this. The problem is the bankruptcy of the main parties and the moral corruption of the political class. But, say, halving the number of MP's would simply make the elected representatives even more remote from the voters.

When I referred to former Yugoslavia, I was actually getting at the benefits of the rule of law and the reduction of nationalism...Its quite a good thing there have been no major wars in W Europe for 70 years or so, isn't it?There, many see EU "restrictions" and "diktats" as something positive, ie health and safety protections, data protection laws,judicial reforms, and at least some banking regulation.Sorry if that interfers too much with the stereotype of "Johnny Foreigner" only seeking monetary gain as soon as we are not looking...

When we speak of "net contributors", lets not overlook the massive contribution to our economy of tariff free access within the EU area. Plus having a bit more clout in world affairs as a part of the EU (ie in trade negotiations with the USA) than alone...

Our financial crisis was in large part due to Maggie and co's deregulation of the financial sector in the 1980's..as a result, and because of having the City as a major world financial centre, we'd have been exposed regardless of the EU...so another example of something blamed on the EU..

Why is immigration seen as such an explanatory factor for all our woes (and consistently has been in some quarters for 100 years)?Shall we call for the repatriation of all the hundreds of thousands of Brits happily now living in EU countries, or is that different because, to paraphrase Mr Farage, they like Germans are ok neighbours whereas Romanians are not...

I accept it may well be you are not the archetypal UKIP voter I admittedly caricatured.

Leaving aside the massive Bulkan Wars for now, just because there have been no major wars in the rest of Europe, why is that necessarily because of the existence of the EU?

Edited by nickgusset (18 May 2014 2.10pm)

I'm all for successful British businesses, we should do all we can to allow them to flourish, ie, minimum of government as possible.

like letting them invest where they want, sell where they want and employ who they want? I agree.

Absolutely - and free of all the EU controls and micro 'management'.

what controls exactly did you mean? Health and safety? or the 'controls' which actually allow us to sell throughout the EU without restriction? You haven't read the book yet, have you?

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We are of course better placed to set up or own health and safety regulations than having some Commissioner from Albania setting them for us.

If we produce goods that people want to buy at a price that they are willing to pay, then we will trade.

Edited by kangel (18 May 2014 8.47pm)

And how do we produce cheaper goods? By using cheap labour. What demographic fills the cheap labour market more than others?
If you stop the workforce coming in, you stop the means of production...

Edited by nickgusset (18 May 2014 8.53pm)

Who said cheap? The market determines the price of a product.