Thank you Ireland

LangerDan wrote:

not to mention that this whole European exercise was partly to protect France against the chance that Germany might go walkabout again.

I'm fairly certain Germany invaded or attempted to invade a few more places than France. And if it prevents that level of carnage ever happening again then it can't be such a bad thing, can it?

EU membership does not financially benefit the UK or Germany. I have recently finished a job where I was responsible for drawing funding from the EU to support UK business. The reason my job ended was because funding has now been directed to the new eastern european nations. Since we joined we have always paid more into the EU pot than we were allowed to take out. The last figures I can remember were for each member of populattion [approximately] we put £110 in and withdrew £96. Germany £112 in and £86 out. france, Spain Portugal, Greece etc put a lot less in and took a lot more out. Most companies I worked with bought a lot of machinery from the E.U as UK manufacturing cannot supply and their biggest better paying clients were usually USA. Our airports, water companies, aerospace are controlled by Spanish & French companies which means we are paying ever more into the EU.

Jim