Despite many requests that such a survey should be undertaken, all British governments since accession, whether Labour or Conservative, have declined to sanction one. The answers to the questions which follow suggest why this might be so.

2. If a cost-benefit analysis was done, what should it cover, especially in relation to the economic benefits which it was promised would accrue to Britain during the 1975 referendum campaign on whether British membership of the Community should be confirmed?

In economic terms, we would need to know whether our trade balance with other EU countries had improved or worsened, whether we had gained or lost from our contributions to the Community budget, whether membership had assisted or hindered us in combating inflation, whether it had helped or depressed our growth rate and what its impact had been on the level of employment. We would need to know whether the Community’s major programmes on agriculture and fishing had been of benefit or damaging. More broadly, we would need to know whether the EU had improved Britain’s ability to defend its interests in the international community, and to influence world events in a positive direction.

3. What has been the record on the trade balance between Britain and the other Member States in the EU?

At the time of the 1975 referendum, much was made of the argument that Britain needed a Community sized market to which to export, and that there would be positive trade advantages to membership. In fact, the record has been the reverse of what was promised. The other EU members have relentlessly improved their trade balances at Britain’s expense. Even allowing for North Sea oil, with the exception of 1980, we have had a visible trade deficit every year with other Member States, cumulating up over the whole period to £120bn. Allowing for inflation, this figure, in 1997 money, comes to £213bn - an average of £8.9bn for every year of membership.

4. What have been our contributions to the Community budget since Accession?

The total gross amount of money paid by Britain to the Community since accession has been £102bn. The total amount we have received back has been £72bn, so our net contribution since 1973 has been £30bn. In 1997 money, allowing for inflation, our cumulative net contribution has been £47bn, an average of £1.9bn for each of the last 25 years. Not only have these very large sums been lost to the British tax-payer, they have been paid out in foreign currency, adding to Britain’s problems of weak balance of payments performance.

5. Why has Britain always been such a large net contributor to the Community budget?

Britain has been a net contributor to the Community every year since accession except 1975 – coincidentally the year in which the Referendum on membership was held - and this situation is likely to continue indefinitely, because of structural differences between the British and continental economies. Our agricultural sector is smaller, so we lose out through the Common Agricultural Policy. We consume a higher proportion of our output than the average, so we pay an exceptionally large amount of VAT to Brussels. We import more from the rest of the world than the EU average so we lose out on the distribution of import duties. On the expenditure side of the Community budget we receive a comparatively small return, mainly because our middling position in the EU standard of living league table works against our entitlement to a major contribution from the EU’s social and structural programmes. Overall over the last 25 years, we have paid in about £1.50 for every £1.00 we have received back. The drain in resources would be even more pronounced but for the Fontainbleau agreement reached in 1984, which may be replaced soon as a result of a review of Community contributions. This is likely to make Britain an even greater net contributor to the Community budget, as yet more countries join the EU.

7. What has happened to the growth rate of the British economy since we joined the Common Market in 1973?

During the period between 1950 and 1973 the British economy grew cumulatively at 3.0% per annum. Between 1973 and 1997, the cumulative growth rate has been 1.9%. This poor performance partly mirrors a sharp deterioration across the whole of the Community from the mid 1970s onwards. The cumulative growth rate among the countries now in the EU was 4.7% between 1960, when the Common Market started, and 1973 when we joined. Since then it has been only 2.1%. The major problem faced by the EU throughout almost all the period, since attempts began to be made to link Community currencies together with the Snake and the ERM, has been the inability of the other member states to compete with Germany’s industrial competitiveness and low inflation rate without exchange rate changes. The consequences have been deflationary policies to contain balance of payments problems, which in turn have caused Germany’s exports, two thirds of which go to other member states, to falter, thus bringing down the German growth rate.

8. What has been the record on unemployment since we joined the Community?

Between 1950 and 1973, the average level of registered unemployment in Britain was 1.8%. Since 1973, it has been 7.3%. This very large increase mirrors problems of worklessness across the EU which have become steadily worse over the last quarter of a century. Since we left the ERM in 1992, Britain’s headline unemployment rate has fallen from 10.1% to 5.3%, while the proportion of the EU workforce out of a job has risen over the last five years from 9.1% to 10.8% - now about 18m people. Unquestionably, the huge unemployment problem in the EU stems from its low growth rate, causing demand to rise more slowly than productivity. In these circumstances, rising numbers of people out of work are inevitable. The EU’s record on unemployment is far worse than anywhere else in the developed world. Compare Norway, which refused to join the Community in referendums held in both 1972 and 1994. The Norwegians currently have an unemployment rate of 4.9% and their economy’s average rate of growth over the last five years has been 4.1%.

9. How have Agriculture and Fishing fared since we joined the Community?

The change from helping agriculture via deficiency payments, the system used before we joined the Common Market, to the protectionist policy of the CAP has greatly increased food prices, hurting poorer people, while the main beneficiaries have been large scale agribusinesses. Agricultural output has increased substantially, but at a very heavy financial and environmental cost. The EU’s fishing policy, on the other hand, has been an unmitigated disaster for Britain. We have lost most of our fishing grounds to other Member States, whose fleets are subsidised at our expense, and who have mercilessly over-fished the seas surrounding Britain. The number of British fishing boats has fallen by 18% since 1990 alone, while the tonnage of fish landed into the UK by UK vessels has fallen by 24% since 1973.

10. How has Britain fared overall since we joined the Common Market in 1973?

When Britain became a member of the Common Market in 1973 our national income per head ranked fifth in the world. The OECD now ranks us nineteenth. During the period from 1950 to 1973 our manufacturing output increased by 101%, or an average of 3.1% per annum. Since 1973, it has gone up by a total of only 10%, a cumulative rate of increase of a barely credible 0.4% a year, while the manufacturing output of the whole world has risen by some 80%, a cumulative rate of increase of 2.4% per annum. Both our inflation rates and the level of unemployment have been much higher on average since 1973 than they were before, while the distribution of income has become much more uneven, and the country has become more divided

On the contrary, we believe that EMU is plagued with fundamental problems which no amount of propaganda can gloss over. Far from being simple and straightforward, the issues are complex and difficult. We therefore need to pledge ourselves to give the most rigorous scrutiny to the arguments surrounding EMU and the Single Currency, and the political and constitutional issues involved. To get the answers right, against all the huge dangers of misjudgements on these issues, a propaganda campaign is the last thing required. Instead, we need clear, realistic and dispassionate analysis, to make sure that we judge accurately what is best for all our futures.