Will leaving the EU cost British jobs?

No.

Thanks for reading.

Just kidding, although in essence that single word answer is correct.

The UK had a balance of payments deficit with the Eurozone in 2011 of £46 billion pounds (it's likely to be considerably higher this year). That means we spend £46 billion more on goods produced in Europe than we make on the goods and services we supply to them.

In effect we create more jobs in Europe, to the tune of £46 billion, than we create here at home from being a member of the EU.

I addition, the UK pays £53 million a day to the EU as part of our membership, and receives £28 million back in the form of EU subsidies - so we effectively pay £25 million a day to be a member of this 'club', money which is spent on a variety of things, not all of which are as stupid as has been portrayed in the Daily Mail, but some are of course. £120 million a year is spent moving the whole circus between Strasbourg and Brussels every 6 months in order not to upset the French, for example. Bringing no benefit, whatsoever to the people of the member states who actually pay for this charade.

Some 47% of the EU budget goes on the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) - effectively a fund to keep Europe's inefficient farmers afloat, preserving an agricultural lifestyle in rural France for example, that would otherwise be a major headache for the French Government but which they could not possibly hope to fund on their own.This is one of the main planks of the original EU agreement and why France is so committed to the EU - it has no choice.

Keeping subsistence farming afloat also tends to mean that efficient farmers or more accurately Agri-Businesses make a killing out of the CAP - making massively more from what they produce, even though they would be profitable without it. The CAP also makes it almost impossible for food producers outside the EU to sell their goods in Europe even if their produce is much cheaper to produce. This is essentially why Africa is fucked: technical term for mired in corruption, needing hand-outs and food aid every few years and being raped of its rich mineral resources in return for bribes that go mainly to the corrupt ruling elite. 'Elite' is obviously a misnomer for 'biggest thugs'. 

Without access to free markets there's no way for food producers in Africa to have a sustainable business model and, therefore, no incentive to build businesses, invest in their future, employ people and develop their communities, regions and countries. They are forced to go on living from hand to mouth and is it therefore any wonder, using religion or tribal bullshit, that its people will do anything to get their hands on the levers of (corrupt) power in those countries when there is no legitimate way of bettering themselves? The goal is almost unlimited wealth and power as opposed to abject poverty. The result is unending conflict often with religion harnessed as some kind of excuse for the usually violent atrocities that are perpetrated in the effort to better themselves when 'the West' denies them any other possible route to prosperity.

But I digress (sorry). This £46 billion deficit: I'm not suggesting that we stop trading with Europe in a protectionist way. That is simply not possible in the modern world and actually hasn't really been possible or desirable since Roman times. Trade is good, it enriches our lives, breaks down barriers, prospers from and therefore promotes, peace. Much more than some specious and contrived 'Union' could ever hope to achieve.

We're told that 50% of our business is with Europe and that, therefore, we cannot afford to leave the EU because of the jobs that would be lost in the UK if we did.

But ask yourself this: Do you really think that Europe would stop doing business with the UK - given that they'd lose a £46 billion trading advantage if they did - just because we left this ridiculous 'club'? It's an argument put forward by Ken Clarke and Peter Mandelson that is so stupid as to be off the map in terms of reality and yet is put forward as credible by many media outlets including, in particular the BBC.

Much of Europe is on its knees economically, largely because of the EU: Germany is not of course because its association with the weaker states means that it gets at least a 30% exchange rate advantage compared to what it would have with the Deutschmark if it were outside the EU. So Germany is booming while the weaker nations are tied in and cannot devalue to rebalance their economies in order to become more competitive and kick start their own economies. Forty percent of young people in southern Europe are unemployed and have no prospect of a prosperous future. Because of the EU.  

So there are clearly 46 billion reasons why Europe will continue to (need to) trade with the UK whether we're in or out of the EU. If the UK left the EU and instead joined EFTA (European Free Trade Association) it would remain a member of the European trading bloc but would also (in EFTA but not as an EU member) be free to establish free trade agreements on its own behalf, with any other countries around the world, not on the basis of a collective EU deal, but as the UK in its own right.

And as members of EFTA alonngside Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, we would continue to enjoy exactly the same trade agreement with Europe outside the EU as we do within it. And that's a relief.

To Europe, much more than it is to us.

EFTA rather than EU membership would also mean taking back control of our borders, home affairs and justice as well as our agricultural and fishing policy. It would - obviously there is a 'downside' to leaving the EU - mean that we would not be able to influence EU policy from our position at the top table. Oh woe is me. As if we have any fucking influence at the moment and are not just shouted and voted down by the Germans, French and Belgians at every opportunity. 

And on the £25 million a day (net) contribution we make to the EU - we are the second biggest contributor after Germany - what are we paying for? We're providing aid and subsidy to poorer European nations, which is arguably a good thing, although it seems a pretty expensive way of keeping Greece or Croatia 'onside' when we have major financial difficulties here at home - and this is all taxpayer money of course, paid by you and me. And in return we are sneered at by Eurocrats. They sneer at the UK when we are the second biggest contributor to their contrived nonsense. One leading commentator estimated that the UK would be better off to the tune of £50billion a year outside the EU but that this benefit would in fact be dwarfed by the benefits to be gained from having our own free trade agreements rather than going through the cumbersome, unresponsive and inflexible EU trade machinery.  More here.

We're also, currently, paying for the cushy lifestyles of Eurocrats who seem to me not to care about their own countries but about lifestyles and benefits that would make Solomon blush. We're also paying for the 'state' to exert more control, more surveillance, more petty laws upon we who are paying for it. Laws made, incidentally, by people, mainly of a socialist persuasion, who have no connection with where we live, our beliefs and values or our history and the issues we daily face.

Take a look at Detroit if you think this is a good thing.

I think we need to take back control of our lives, our borders, our laws and our finances. We have, because of our past, stronger connections with other markets in the Commonwealth, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, China, Canada, The US, Africa, than anyone else in the EU. And Europe cannot afford not to trade with us.

It's time the sneering stopped and we told these fuckwits in the EU - not our valued friends in Europe with whom we trade and enjoy good relations - to f*ck off. I think that many if not most other countries in Europe - especially those in the south, would share these sentiments and would, themselves, be much better off in the long run outside the EU than within its suffocating, state-heavy, controlling and micro-managing nonsense.

Thanks for reading. 'No' was more succinct. ;)