Is the EU is good for you? Payments, immigration, and all those laws…..What’s the truth?.

We’ve heard for so long and so often that we’re paying way too much to be members of the EU, that we have a huge problem with hundreds of thousands of sponging unstoppable Europeans entering Britain, and we’re being governed by undemocratic Brussels bureaucrats.

It comes as quite a surprise to many to learn that much of this isn’t true and that the EU is good for you.

fullfact.org have been fact checking these and many other claims for some time.

Britain has paid about  £8.5billion a year since it’s entry to the EU in 1973, a total of £387billion and not the often quoted £500billion.

Net migration from the rest of the EU has been unusually high in recent years. But looking back before that, it was typically been around 80,000 in the years since 2004, and between 6,000 and 30,000 before that.  EU migrants contribute more to the UK economy than they take out.

Quoted figures for EU Laws ‘imposed’ on the UK are as high as 85%, but it’s only possible to justify any measure between about 15% to 50%.

We’re members of a European club and the club has rules. As a country we make and adapt our rules so that we follow the club rules. We do this so that we can enjoy the benefits of being in that club.

What are those benefits? If you want to find out a place to start is this Financial Times, ‘pub quiz’. There’s plenty of other evidence that the EU is good for you online if you look.