Still 'Banging On'

From the Bruges Group:

FACTS:
By 2008 Britain had made total contributions to the European Community (EC) Budget of £230.4 billion gross or almost £68.2 billion net.
By the end of the current EC budget period Britain will have made estimated total contributions to the EC Budget of £315.4 billion gross and £101.4 billion net.
By 2007 Britain had an accumulated trade deficit with the other EU member states of £383.7 billion.
The Common Agricultural Policy costs Britain at least £16.8 billion per annum.
The Common Fisheries Policy costs Britain at least £3.275 billion per annum.
Over-regulation on business costs Britain at least £28 billion per annum.
In 2008 membership of the European Union cost Britain almost £65.675 billion per annum gross or almost £55.775 billion per annum net.
FRAUD:
Due to the EU being riddled with corruption it is likely that the equivalent of Britain's entire net contribution to the EU is going into the pockets of fraudsters.

THE EFFECTS OF FREEING BRITAIN FROM THE EU:
A BOOST TO THE ECONOMY. As EU red tape is holding back the UK economy by £28 billion, 2% of UK GDP, it is clear that freeing Britain from EU control will get Britain out of recession and get British people back to work.

COST FREE TAX CUTS. As politicians of the three main parties are struggling to explain how they will deliver the tax cuts that the British economy needs they have failed to realise that this money can be found if we stop paying the EU billions of pounds per year of taxpayers’ money.
The 2% boost to economic growth created by leaving the EU and slashing its excessive red tape would also increase tax revenue by £10.73 billion. Combine that with the direct savings to the exchequer and it will allow for a 6p in the pound cut in the basic rate of income tax.

Here is the full text of Margaret Thatcher's 1988 speech at Bruges when the EU was still the EC & from which the group took its name: link
Extract:
"But working more closely together does not require power to be centralised in Brussels or decisions to be taken by an appointed bureaucracy.
Indeed, it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, some in the Community seem to want to move in the opposite direction.
We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European super­state exercising a new dominance from Brussels."
Cross-posted from Calling England