Priti Patel makes the case for Wales to leave the EU.
Wales is a proud country which would be better off, more secure and enjoy greater prosperity by voting to leave the EU in the referendum on 23 June. Leaving the EU would mean that families and businesses in Wales would no longer have to fork out nearly £650m a year to pay towards the UK’s membership fee. That’s over £16 billion since joining the EU in 1973, which goes to the EU’s wasteful, corrupt and bureaucratic institutions which have not had their accounts given a clean bill of health in over 20 years.
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Would you entrust your savings to bank that had a track record of poor financial management, or hand money over to a conman? No you wouldn’t. But membership of the EU gives unelected bureaucrats the power to pillage our pockets in the most expensive daylight robbery in history.
In the years ahead, we look set to be paying in even more money. Membership of the EU means that your taxes will continue to be systematically taken from you and spent on wasteful bureaucracy, pet projects, and on often-dubious schemes in far-flung parts of Europe.
Just think, instead of your money and taxes going to Brussels, it could instead be spent in Wales on your priorities. That £650m taken from Wales by Brussels could pay for 4 new hospitals, one-third of the schools budget, or five times the road and transport maintenance budget. Voting to leave the EU means that your taxes will be spent on your priorities.
Leaving will also strengthen democracy and devolution in Wales. Instead of the EU deciding how money in Wales should be spent, more decisions will be made by elected politicians accountable to you in the Welsh Assembly, local councils and the UK Parliament. They would not only have the freedom to set the laws and rules that are in the best interests of Wales – but control over the financial resources to back up their decisions.
The costs of the EU are far higher than the annual membership fee. Rules and regulations made by the EU’s out of touch pen-pushers have severe consequences on business. Wales has over 200,000 small and medium sized enterprises, which are responsible for three-quarters of all jobs in Wales and nearly 60% of turnover. All of these businesses are hit hard by the coats of EU rules even though most do no trade with the EU. Why should your local village store or high street shop pay the price of the EU’s plans to create a European superstate?
The EU also stands as a barrier to us giving support to businesses in need. When the Welsh steel industry needed intervention, both the Governments in Westminster and Cardiff were limited in what they could do by the EU. Membership meant it took Commission bureaucrats fifty days to approve a state aid application, a delay that cost jobs and millions of pounds. We are also powerless to set tariffs to protect Welsh and UK businesses from the Chinese dumping under-priced steel on the British market. When an important Welsh industry needs help in the future, we are in a far weaker position to assist while we remain in the EU.
By voting to leave the EU, we can take back control of these laws and set sensible regulations that support employees, investment, job creation, and growth in Wales.
Leaving the EU would also mean we can take back control of our borders and end the high levels of uncontrolled immigration that put our housing, NHS, schools and other public services under such pressure. Figures released last week showed that the numbers of immigrants from the EU living and working in the UK was one and a half million more in the last five years than previously thought. That’s the equivalent of half the population of Wales. Over the next 20 years Wales is predicted to need to increase its housing supply by at least 10%, but with immigration far higher than previously thought, more people could find themselves struggling to find a home.
Wales has always been welcoming to migrants from across the world and has been a leader in integration and community cohesion. But when we see long queues for GP appointments, a shortage of housing, and school places under pressure, it is obvious that the EU’s free movement free-for-all is hurting Wales and the rest of the UK. While we need migrants to fill Labour shortages in some sectors and should provide sanctuary to those in genuine humanitarian need, membership of the EU means we often end up excluding the brightest and the best from the rest of the world as we take in more lower skilled migrants from Europe. We can only control immigration effectively and introduce a fair and sustainable system if we leave the EU.
On top of all of these problems caused the EU, Brussels and its sycophantic cheerleaders have sought to treat the Welsh public like fools. For years they have tried to trick and frighten people into thinking that their prosperity is in some way dependent on EU support and membership. This illusion of dependency is wrong. All the EU schemes that provide money to Wales, such as regional development funds and support for farmers, are paid for by your taxes. It’s not EU money, but your money – from the taxes taken from your pay packets and from the tills of businesses. The UK pays twice as much into the EU as it gets back, which means that by leaving the EU we can continue to provide support to these sectors in a less bureaucratic way and have more left over to spend on other priorities.
It is also important for the people of Wales to know that when the EU planned to allocate structural funds for the period 2014-2020, its lack of knowledge of Wales meant that the Commission sought to impose savage cuts on these funding streams for Wales. These reductions were significant and would have taken hundreds of millions of pounds out of the Welsh economy. The UK Government reallocated some of the funding from England to Wales rebalance some of the shortfall. But the fact that the EU Commission plotted to hit Wales hard with cuts demonstrates that the Welsh people would be better off out of the EU and with the future funding for these types of projects determined by politicians accountable to the electorate here.
What’s more, there is no guarantee that these EU branded funds will continue beyond 2020. The Government cannot give any indication of what the funding levels will be and if they will exist at all. But with high demands on resources from other parts of Europe and from countries like Turkey that are looking to join the EU, Wales and the UK look certain to see further reductions in these funds beyond 2020. The EU planned deep cuts before and will do so again. The only way to prevent this from happening and to give the Governments in Cardiff and Whitehall free choice how to spend this money is to vote to take back control and leave the EU.
With its strong national identity, Wales would thrive if free from the costs and demands of the EU. Voting to leave on 23 June is the safe and secure choice for Wales.
Simply shocked to read such a badly slanted polemic by a current Government minister. For example she fails to mention the UK rebate nor all the money coming back to the UK as agricultural subsidies, regional development grants, research grants etc – and Wales is a key beneficiary!
“Wales is a proud country”, writes Priti Patel. If it truly is, surely it would seek to unshackle itself from the deadweight of the UK, with its parochial, imperialist outlook. Patel continues,” Just think, instead of your money and taxes going to Brussels, it could instead be spent in Wales on your priorities.” Perhaps the option of paying taxes to Cardiff, for redistribution, may be more pragmatic. But then when did British nationalists ever think in a practical or rational manner?
Hang on if Patel,
I don’t understand something here. You say that under Brexit, we will continue to receive the structural funds. But you have been parading in the Vote Leave Bus that the £350 million will be going to the NHS?
“Leaving the EU would also mean we can take back control of our borders and end the high levels of uncontrolled immigration”
We already have control of our borders, when I come back to the UK its the UK border force/police at the airport not the EU border police. Most immigration to the UK is non-EU immigration and leaving the EU will not stop non-EU immigration nor will leaving the EU will stop illegal immigration. These are already controlled by the UK.
With the leave mob giving Norway and Switzerland has models the UK will follow if it leaves the EU, its import to keep repeating that the Norway and Swiss models will allow EU immigration to continue unimpeded.
If UKIP can’t even get the basics right what hope have we got if we follow them
Strange? Did Cameron not say that he could not guarantee continuation of structural funds? Yet Pritti Patel a junior minister seems to have decided to overrule him?! someone is telling porkies!
Ms Patel doesn’t realise that immigration is a non issue in Wales.The only ones causing us any difficulty are the spittle flecked Daily Mail clutching retirees who have come in from over the border to bolster the UKIP vote. Leaving the EU isn’t going to address that problem !
Is this a member of the government that opposed EU action against Chinese steel dumping, or not? My own sense is that Ms Patel is largely indifferent to the well-being of Wales or the Welsh.
As for the “EU plotting against Wales”, didn’t the Westminister government plot against Welsh and northern English interests by blocking EU proposals to limit dumped steel? Isn’t it odd that other EU states manage to protect and promote their primary manufacturing industries. But as Ms Patel’s constituency benefits greatly from its proximity to London, I don’t suppose her supporters care if the Welsh economy falls further into recession.
Ms Patel’s comments highlight the need for Wales to take hold of its own destiny and slough the suffocating mantle of the United Kingdom, instead of being repeatedly dragged into one economic calamity after another.
Mrs Patel is basically right but for the wrong reasons.
What both sides in the referendum seem to be ignoring is that is not just about money – or, indeed, mainly about money. Most of us could make more money by doing things which, for one reason or another, we do not want to do, but we choose not to do so. We realise that all the great religious leaders and philosophers are right – money is not the most important thing in life.
The real objection to the EU is therefore not economic but moral. As currently organised, it undermines the Sovereignty of Parliament, the strongest defence of so many of our basic freedoms. It is for the same reason that many of us also object to devolution. Mrs Patel, like her party, is therefore confused and contradictory on that point.
The economic argument is therefore secondary, and neither side seems credible on the subject. It is wrong for the ‘Leave’ side to deny that there will be disruption in the short-term in the unlikely event of ‘Brexit,’ but equally wrong for the ‘Remain’ side to imply that the UK will be cut off completely from Europe and to exaggerate the economic effects.
These are, incidentally, the conclusions of one who is not ‘Eurosceptic’ but rather ‘Europragmatist,’ and who argued in favour of the Treaty of Maastricht, albeit with reservations. Twenty years ago, access to the Single Market was just about worth the political price, but globalisation now means that Europe itself is too small, too restrictive, and too inward looking. We need to look at how best to access the market of 7,000 million, not a market of a twentieth of that. It should not be denied that change will be difficult, as change always is, but that change is necessary, almost inevitable, and ultimately for the better.
Nor should it be denied that there will be winners and losers. Judging by their generous support for the ‘Remain’ campaign, the likes of Goldman Sachs and HSBC think they will be among the losers.
Good.
Even those of us who are not socialists should be against crony capitalism – indeed, those of us who believe free markets should be the first to oppose it. While the banking sector is essential to the economy, it is not the whole economy. The bankers need to be reminded of what they still owe the rest of us, especially after 2008. If leaving the EU shakes them up a bit, that may be no bad thing in its own right.
Brian
“Ms Patel doesn’t realise that immigration is a non issue in Wales.The only ones causing us any difficulty are the spittle flecked Daily Mail clutching retirees who have come in from over the border to bolster the UKIP vote.”
And now bolstering the Abolish Wales Party vote
Interesting that in this piece, if you substitute EU for UK and Europe for England, then this would be seen as extreme Welsh nationalism – it does start to read much better though. i.e.
“By voting to leave the UK, we can take back control of these laws and set sensible regulations that support employees, investment, job creation, and growth in Wales.
Leaving the UK would also mean we can take back control of our borders and end the high levels of uncontrolled immigration that put our housing, NHS, schools and other public services under such pressure. “
And just to follow up on my poor English grammatical skills in the last message, by simply changing two of the acronyms and one of the cities in Priti’s message, you can arrive at a much more palatable message:
“On top of all of these problems caused the UK, London and its sycophantic cheerleaders have sought to treat the Welsh public like fools. For years they have tried to trick and frighten people into thinking that their prosperity is in some way dependent on UK support and membership. This illusion of dependency is wrong.”
[Comment Removed by Editors]
Writing about the financial impacts of EU membership in Wales without mentioning structural funds takes a special case of chutzpah (to ignore the elephant) or ignorance; having dealt directly with Ms Patel it could genuinely be either.
I genuinely started this campaign as undecided; the antics of the Leave brigade have made my decision pretty clear now
You simply have to decide if you want the future of the U.K. To be decided by the MPs you vote in or by a bunch of unelected EU bureaucrats. Do you believe in Democracy or not. Simples.
Hi Alex,
I emailed you yesterday to ask that you resubmit the comment, but with the last sentence removed as it violates our comment policy.
Best wishes,
Jess
@ John Winterson Richards
“The real objection to the EU is therefore not economic but moral. As currently organised, it undermines the Sovereignty of Parliament, the strongest defence of so many of our basic freedoms. It is for the same reason that many of us also object to devolution”
This would be the Goldilocks principle of sovereignty and basic freedoms.
This Brussels parliament is too big
This Cardiff parliament is too small
This London parliament is just right.
How can the EU undermine UK sovereignty when the UK runs the EU?
As much as 85% of the EU decisions are Uk decisions (Newsnight). Only about 15% go against the UK. Strangly average and much the same as England’s home – Germany.
Ms Patel cares not a jot for our sovereignty. She won’t let us have any.
Her side have made it plain that they don’t care if we all lose our jobs as long as they can continue with the pretence that England rules the world.
England’s in decline. Thatcher’s Civil Servants told her so. After her death their assesment on her efforts to turn it round was “No difference”.
If we leave the EU it will not be long to 1972/3 all over again.
Do I want Wales to be totally dependent on the wonderful Westminster pantomime? No thank you.
@ John Winterson Richards The UK is almost unique in that its political system is based on the notion of the sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament (only NZ, & to a lesser extent, Israel, have adopted it). Essentially it makes politicians at Westminster sovereign, denying sovereignty of the people, and thus subverting democracy. I can’t think of a single-party government post 1945 which achieved fifty-per cent of the vote in a general election. The current Tory government won a majority on just 36.9%. It guarantees a perpetual political tyranny because of the iniquitous voting system which deposits most of our votes in the dustbin. It has created two virtually identical parliamentary parties, which because of FPTP are guaranteed intervals in government, regardless of how badly they performed in the past. As we know they have both performed abysmally. The UK’s economy is a mess, unbalanced, some 75% focused on financial services, surely a recipe for disaster, if ever there was one. Thankfully membership of the EU moderates the tyranny, as most of its member states are significantly more democratic than is the UK. I see no prospect of PS ever being ditched in England. The people of Wales and Scotland have the possibility of voting themselves out of WM tyranny, and creating constitutional democracies entrenched by a written constitution, placing the People above politicians.
There are many more reasons for us to Vote to Remain in the EU, especially in Wales, if not just because of the funding we receive, which I’m convinced we will never get from Westminster or Whitehall, if we leave.
Nicely put, CapM!
However, it is not size that matters. Westminster is currently the least-worst level of government not because it is innately ‘just right’ but, on the contrary, because when it gets it wrong, as it often does, at least it offers us a viable opportunity to vote the rascals out – and there are plenty of historical precedents of that being done. The same cannot be said of the European or Welsh levels. The internal structure of the EU means there is no meaningful correlation between individual votes and the composition of the Commission. Meanwhile, in Wales, today’s events confirm that the Assembly remains, as it was designed to be, under the permanent control of a single party, even when that party commands only a third of the popular vote. Without a realistic possibility of a change of administration at the EU or Welsh Assembly levels, Westminster, for all it faults, is the only fully functioning democracy we have.
Do we really want a Wales outside Europe and more to the point do we really want those running the (shambolic) leave campaign to be our future leaders?
@ John Winterson Richards
The inherent democratic flaw of the UK’s FPTP voting system has already been pointed out to you by Dave.
It results in a perpetual cycle of one group of what you call “rascals”, that most people didn’t want to be in sole charge being replaced by another group of “rascals” that most people didn’t want to be in sole charge either.
You are right in saying that the Welsh Assembly was designed to be, under the permanent control of a single party, even when that party commands only a third of the popular vote. It was at Westminster, known to you as “the only fully functioning democracy we have” that decreed that it should be so.
CapM, just to be clear, are you actually objecting to the fact that Wales has a system of ‘proportional representation’?
Either way, Wales is hardly an advert for PR. The supposed great iniquity of ‘first past the post’ is that we have a government endorsed only by a minority of the voters – but that is exactly what we now have in Wales!
Moreover, the proportion of voters endorsing the administration in Cardiff Bay under ‘proportional representation’ is less than that endorsing the government in Westminster under ‘first past the post.’
More could be said against ‘proportional representation’ but the whole issue was discussed thoroughly and discredited in the AV referendum five years ago, so further comment would be superfluous on this thread. Suffice it to say that, on that occasion, the people considered the issue carefully and made the right decision.
@John Winterson Richards
I’m surprised that you don’t seem to know that there are a number of systems that aim to make representation proportional to the votes cast.
The Welsh assembly has a version which only applies to one third of AMs elected. If anything any unfairness in the political make up of AMs in Wales’s Senedd is an advert for a half hearted attempt at PR.
Even so it produces a more representative Senedd than the Westminster’s 100% FPTP system. Overall the number of AMs of three parties in the Senedd pretty much reflect the number of constituency votes they got overall. Labour is over-represented and the LibDems under represented. This inequality is not the fault of a system with 33% PR but of one with 66% FPTP.
The PR system presented as “Hobson’s choice” in the referendum was a particularly complicated and inferior one. Not surprisingly as it came out of Parliament where the two parties with the largest number of MPs have their own reasons for keeping an effective PR system well away from voting booths.
@John Winterson Richards
However, it is not size that matters. Westminster is currently the least-worst level of government
No John, that is just wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again. Westminster is the worst form of government
CapM, all systems of ‘proportional representation’ – and you are right that there are many, many of them – have the same basic flaws. Perhaps the greatest is equating representative democracy with balancing parties when the party system may be the biggest obstacle to true democracy.
Anyway, this thread, on Europe, is not the place to go into detail on the subject.
@John Winterson Richards
It was you that chose to laud the supposedly superior democracy of Westminster compared to Brussels and for good measure Cardiff as well. Personally I can’t see anything you’ve subsequently written that actually backs that assertion up. Which means no back up to your argument that governance from Westminster is more moral than governance from Cardiff or Brussels. To remind you of your argument –
“The real objection to the EU is therefore not economic but moral. As currently organised, it undermines the Sovereignty of Parliament, the strongest defence of so many of our basic freedoms. It is for the same reason that many of us also object to devolution.”
CapM, there is no lauding here. If you want someone to laud the government of the United Kingdom in living memory, do not look in this direction. The last 52 years have seen 18 years of good albeit imperfect government, 6 years of mediocre government, and 28 years of positively bad government in Westminster.
Although others might disagree about which periods of government were good, mediocre, or bad, none can deny that there has been a variation in quality because there have been changes of government. The same cannot be said of the Wales or EU.
In this sense, not because of any innate superiority, the functioning of democracy in Westminster is relatively more efficient than it is in Cardiff Bay or Brussels.
This was the point first made in the comment of 17th May which answers your last.
@JWR; I don’t think it’s true that there are no changes of govnt (or regime to put it pejoratively) in Brussels; both the Commissioners and the lead they get from the council do change and have undisputably changed, ideologically from the days of Jacques Delor to the current leadership of Junker.
However it is a slow process, emerging through decisions in a range of ways not as clear as an election and so much of their work is untransparent and that which isn’t, is understood and followed by few.
And if the changes this century seem very slow that is largely because of the continuity in policy making between UK and German govnts (despite political changes within those states) who steer so much of the EU agenda.
You raise a valid point, Chris, but there is a difference between changes of government and changes in government. Replacing one centrist federalist coalition with a slightly different centrist federalist coalition is not really a change of government. That was why the whole Juncker v Schulz pantomime was so meaningless. You are also right to mention transparency – there can be no democracy without it.
For better or for worse, Jacques Delors deserves credit for being the man who made the EU what it is – but he never pretended there was anything democratic about how he did it.