More honest debate over EU needed

Put simply, no government, including the EU, has its own money. The only funds available to the EU are from the tax payers.

Equally simple to grasp is the fact that we in the UK pay more to the E.U. than we get back. This year the deficit is about £7 billion, I leave it to the readers to decide how this money could be spent, just as it should be left to the British votes to decide. Every blue plaque, banner, advert and particular project has been paid for by the EU, has been paid for by the British tax payer.

Does Mr Healey honestly see something wrong with British Ministers having to fight to get some of our money back from Brussels?

Mr Healey may be correct when he says this country exported £158 billion of goods to the rest of the EU last year. He doesn’t go on that every single year of the EU membership has given us a trade deficit. Thank fully this country has trade surplus with those countries outside the EU with whom trade is rapidly exporting.

Such poverty stricken backwards as Switzerland and Norway are far more independent on trade with the EU than this country and appear to be managing without the costs of membership.

Finally, a word about the old smokescreen of three million jobs depending on trade with the EU, trade with the EU does not require membership. To equate the two is, according to the author of the report which is the source of this statistic, “pure nonsense” as millions of jobs depend on trade with North America. Is Mr Healey advocating membership of NAFTA?

I really do think we need more reform and honest debate on the rights and wrongs of EU membership ahead of any referendum.

Ian Clay, Westerton Drive, Bramley