[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Chris

Another excellent summary of the EU's failings by Daniel Hannan MEP

Excellent, needs summarising:

If the EU were just about international co-operation and trade, no one would have a problem with it. The trouble is that it regulates things that have no conceivable cross-border dimension: the power of our electrical appliances, the frequency of our bin collections, the way we open a bank account, the tax on sanitary products. Our laws should have precedence on our own territory, and we should be able to hire and fire the people who pass them.

The utter refusal to grant David Cameron better terms puts that beyond doubt. If this is how Britain, the second-largest financial contributor, is treated now, before the referendum, imagine how we’d be treated if we voted to remain.

We are the fifth-largest economy in the world, with the fourth largest military budget. We are leading members of Nato, the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth and the G7 and G20. We are one of five permanent seat-holders at the UN Security Council. How much bigger do we have to be before we can live under our own laws?