Campaign for an Independent Britain

By Peter Gibbs

Coalition Government ministers continue to sing the praises of the free market and free trade. Recently on the Today programme, Innovation Minister David Willetts informed Radio 4’s listeners that “Competition is good for the consumer.” John Humphrys, the programme’s presenter, reminded Mr Willetts that “competition” in the energy sector had brought nothing but excessively high prices, cartels, and tens of thousands of people – particularly our pensioners – being thrown into fuel poverty!

Whilst supposedly committed to competition and economic growth, Mr Cameron and his ministers seem reluctant to allow British businesses the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. In fact they seem rather keen to award government contracts to our German competitors, as Derby-based railway engineers, Bombardier, found out to their cost. No doubt this is what Mr Willetts means by competition.

So what support is there for British companies trying to compete in the “global marketplace”? Is HM Government, with its commitment to “growth”, helping British manufacturing businesses when they are battling for exports?
One British company, which has exhibited three times at the Hong Kong Electronic Show, received a grant to cover 50% of the costs of its exhibition stand. This grant, however, was not from Britain’s Department of Trade – but from the Chinese government!

Chinese aid

The stand was booked through the company’s China office, and it was Chinese officials who arranged for the payments. Not a bean, and not even a pound, was available from the UK (or should that be Yew-Kay?!) even though the company was selling British-made products to one of the toughest markets in the world.

It seems that the Chinese Communist Party understands the value of free enterprise and British export promotion, even if the British Government doesn’t.

Special arrangements have even been made for the Chinese Premier to visit the stand of this British company at the Electronics Show and to welcome the managing director of the British company personally. How much in grants does the British Government award to those who are following the Cameron exhortation to “go out and sell to the world”, e.g. to China and other “emerging markets”? Answer: zero.

There were 9,000 exhibitors from all over the world at the Hong Kong Electronics Show. But only one British company – and its presence was subsidized by the People’s Republic of China, not the UK. So much for the Coalition’s commitment to “competition” and “economic growth”.

Peter Gibbs is a freelance journalist and an adviser to small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

By Andy Smith

By rejecting the "Merkozy" plan to deepen the powers of the EU in the wake of the latest Eurozone crisis, Prime Minister David Cameron may well have fired the opening shot in the campaign to decisively change Britain's relationship with Europe. But did he mean to do this? Was he so shocked by the backbench rebellion over the EU in the House of Commons a few weeks before that he felt he needed to return to his supposedly Eurosceptic roots? Perhaps his advisers had persuaded him that his speech against a referendum on EU membership had "not played well" with grass-roots Tories or the electorate? Or did he not quite realise the far-reaching implications of his decision to block the EU's latest power grab?

Certainly, when he went to Brussels his intention seems to have been purely to protect the interests of the City of London, rather than advancing the cause of national independence. Although the Downing Street spinmasters sought to project a Churchillian image of Mr Cameron "battling for Britain", in reality it seems more a case of his battling for the bankers - or rather for Anglo-American bankers as opposed to the German bankers whose interests Angela Merkel and her French crony Nicolas Sarkozy were busy championing.

However, it has to be said that whatever Mr Cameron's motives were in refusing to bend to Franco-German demands, those of us who believe Britain would be better off out of the EU can only rejoice at the effects of his actions. Indeed, the resulting political storm in Brussels - with Monsieur Sarkozy and Frau Merkel publicly rebuking the British Prime Minister, and with Mr Cameron's own deputy PM, Nick Clegg, criticising the Conservatives' supposedly "isolationist" tendencies - will have done more to bring closer our goal of UK disengagement from the EU than any other political development of the past 18 months. So, I happily give two cheers for David Cameron, though not three. I will give the third only if and when the Conservatives show themselves capable of taking the next, much bigger, step towards the restoration of British independence. I see no sign yet of the Tories showing themselves willing to embrace the cause of withdrawal from the EU. But a referendum could soon be on the agenda.

We in the Campaign for an Independent Britain must make ourselves ready for the great battles ahead.

 By Roger Helmer 

I was first elected, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, to the European parliament in 1999. Back then, I still believed that there were benefits in EU membership, and that all it needed was a determined, Anglo-Saxon reform agenda.

Older and wiser now, and with a dozen years’ experience in Brussels and Strasbourg, I realise that the EU is simply beyond reform. It deserves to be put out of its misery. As my colleague Dan Hannan says, the EU is making us poorer, and less democratic, and less free.

I still believe that there are benefits in membership – but none that could not be achieved with a simple free trade agreement, such as dozens of countries around the world have with the EU, with more being currently negotiated.
The trade benefits of being in the Single Market are less than 2% of GDP, while the regulatory costs exceed 5%. And those are not my figures, but quotes from EU Commissioners.

Undemocratic

Meantime the damage to democratic accountability, and to public trust in politics, is incalculable. Most of our decisions are made by people we didn't elect, and can't get rid of. Again and again we face diktats from Brussels, or European Court decisions, that we (and our government) hate, but we have to accept anyway.

There is a view that we need to be in the EU “for trade”, but of course we will continue to trade with the EU after we leave, just as Switzerland and Norway – and the USA and Japan – do very successfully.

We are a major net importer from the EU, and therefore in a very strong negotiating position. After we leave, Germany will continue to sell us BMWs, and Nissan and Toyota will continue to sell British-made cars to the continent. The EU is an economic area in long-term relative decline. While the US will hold share of world trade, and the BRICs will grow, Europe lags behind.

It makes no sense for the UK to link itself primarily or preferentially to an area in long-term decline, while turning our backs on our natural partners in the “Anglosphere” – the community of democratic English-speaking nations.
All this was true a couple of years ago. But now we have the euro crisis delivering the coup de grâce to the EU economy. The eurozone is in melt¬down.

Two key aperçus emerge: first, failure is built in to the structure of the euro. It cannot survive without massive, on-going fund transfers to the periphery, which are simply unacceptable to the German tax-payer. While Merkel and Sarkozy look for a rescue formula, the truth is that no formula will work, nor be acceptable to national parliaments.

Break-up

Only an orderly break-up of the euro project offers any hope. And secondly, we see the totally dysfunctional nature of the EU. Again and again they promise decisive action. But again and again they deliver too little, too late.

Cameron and Osborne say (rightly) that the euro crisis will harm Britain, but then argue (wrongly) that we should support euro rescue plans. These plans will fail. They throw good money after bad.

We should be distancing ourselves from Brussels and strengthening what defences we have -- not getting sucked into bail-outs. And it is morally wrong that we stand on the side-lines and demand that euro-zone states accept an emasculation of their independence which we would never countenance for ourselves.

I was a Conservative all these years because I believed we were a eurosceptic party, and that sooner or later a Conservative government would sort out the problem. That view was getting very threadbare before Cameron's outrageous, damaging and pointless decision to apply a three-line whip against a motion calling for a referendum.
Cameron's pretence, adopted for electoral purposes, that he is a eurosceptic, is no longer credible. Like Macmillan before him, he is simply the London face of Brussels. Some are comparing him to Heath.

That's why I can no longer honestly sit as a Conservative MEP. I am looking forward to retirement, but I suspect I may not be able entirely to disengage from my commitment to the freedom and independence of our country.

Roger Helmer has represented the East Midlands in the European Parliament for the past 12 years.