[hibeejim21]

Well said Jim. I said in my previous thread that I was assuming much of the areas of financial activity within the EU mainly because I don't have access to what would be a huge list of projects, developments, investments etc throughout the EU. They are real and I know this because I have a close contact who works on EU affairs and business and one can indeed glean a lotta information on said EU outgoings and it is not as "non-transparent" as being suggested by Matt!!??? IMO that is being a tad disingenuous to suit a certain argument that is flawed TBF!! A lot of that kinda info can be acquired.

While I have no doubt you are correct with the money that comes back to the UK from the EU for a variety of initiatives and while I accept they do publish this info some where, it still irks me that they stood back during the referendum that could see their 2nd biggest member leave without making it blatantly clear what benefits the UK get from the EU!!  I know its a fine line when “interfering” with the internal politics of a member but they should have made sure we were bombarded with this sort of info instead of letting Farage and BJ craft the daily message with their constant lies!!  That lack of self promoting or marketing or whatever it would be called is part of the problem with the EU and its one of the reasons why the counter argument can be difficult to refute.

They stood back at Camerons request.

Each country pays the same proportion of its national income to the EU budget, so richer countries pay more and poorer ones less, that's the way its supposed to be FFS. The biggest beneficiaries are agriculture - the food we eat as europeans - and the poorer nations Poland,hungary,romania etc. It's in Europe and the worlds benefit for them to be stronger and industrious....poland is already making huge strides. Brexit voters always bring up the contributions issue like its some huge shocker, it's an absolute nonsense.

I was in cornwall in the summer and I was struck by the amount and diversity of EU projects there all clearly signposted. Good luck getting that kind of investment from the tories.

But it's all nothing compared to how we benefit from the single market. What will we replace it with that's better and provides more value ?

I keep saying this but a lot of the English don't seem to grasp that after we crash out and the tax dodgers have their assets stashed away from investigation and the disaster capitalists have made their killing we will be cutting a deal with the EU as soon as we can (the eu one with Canada took 7 years) and will be back to square one, and we will be subject to EU law throughout the whole mess.