350 Million.

[popgoestheweasal.]

To be given to the EU next year from the british tax payer.
Wonder how many people will have there benefits. disabled benefit. housing benefit and redundances to pay for that.

love the EU me.

[Ryehill]

 One important word missing here . It is an extra £350 million.

[Donkey Kong]

I wonder how long it will be before 'the usual suspects' pipe up and say we shouldn't be discussing this subject on here, and that we shouldn't keep 'banging on' about the EU etc?

On the basis that I am starting to suspect that you can't read, see below for a nice easy link to a forum that exists on this website for this kind of stuff;

http://www.forum.hartlepoolpost.co.uk/index.php/board,4.0.html

[Ryehill]

   A question for Perseus. Are you in any way employed by the E.U. ? A simple yes or no will suffice.

[rabbit]

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/european_union_finances_2011.pdf

UK Treasury Document (i.e. not biased and accurate?)

See Chart 3B for graph showing increase in our net contribution over the years.

[Micksmate]

Ryehill - I think, if you trawl back a little way on a past thread 'p' admitted to having a certificate in 'European Politics' (not the exact title) which turned out to be an award issued by the Monnet Institute.
Monnet, a French Marxist academic was one of the chief architects of what has morphed into the EU.  The aims of the Monnet Institute are to foster the principles of a Federal Europe (United States of Europe) with the abolition of nation states and their replacement with an unelected bureaucracy.
Pretty much describes the EU as it now is, don't you think?

Could well be he's on the EU payroll?

Is that why he refused to say what his employment was?

[popgoestheweasal.]

Its a bit high brow for me all this stuff so this is what i see as a working man from Hartlepool.
We are give the EU 350million extra while people are losing there jobs and services. no pay rise in my case now for 4 years. not knowing that my kids will ever work when they leave school.
In my humble opinion its money that should be spend in this country.

[marky]

People who are anti-EU are better off voting for the Tories who have a significant grouping of anti-EU people already in place in Parliament and are therefore in a far better position than UKIP to actually achieve something. UKIP have been going a while now and there's no sign of them breaking through the Westminster barrier.
They do well in European elections because there is a large section of the public who are either anti-EU or are Euro-sceptics and UKIP are easily identified as being anti-EU. However, they are also identified as being a single-issue party even though they try desperately to prove otherwise. I'm afraid KD's fixation on here clearly demonstrates this to be the case. I don't think the British people take very well to obsessives.
I think KD should take up the HTH offer to have his own column. That way he can get things off his chest without clogging up this forum with his own obsession.

[marky]

I rest my case, m'lord.

[for fawkes sake]

I suppose the point is that everyone connects UKIP with being 'the anti-Europe' party and yet, even though many of the public are themselves sceptical about the EU, they still don't see UKIP as the answer. I suppose that is UKIP's problem to resolve.

[popgoestheweasal.]

UKIP will slowly get stronger as the EU want more money from us to keep them afloat.

[marky]

...... an' he was an 'ell of a painter too, though a bit wishy-washy for my taste.

[Micksmate]

Just out of interest to anyone who cares (probably about 3 or 4 of you?), here's a little bit of information on Kipperdip's nemesis the 'dark lord', 'Marxist' Jean Monnet.

First of all here is a quote from American scholar Hal Draper (speaking of Karl Marx); "There are few thinkers in modern history whose thoughts have been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike."

Kipperdip has joined the list of people who have fallen into this trap, well not so much fallen, more dived in head first.

Secondly, here is a description of a Neo-Functionalist;

Neofunctionalism describes and explains the process of regional integration with reference to how three causal factors interact with one another: (a) growing economic interdependence between nations, (b) organizational capacity to resolve disputes and build international legal regimes, and (c) supranational market rules that replace national regulatory regimes.

And so to Jean Monnet. (He's a neofunctionalist by the way, not a Marxist)

KD is correct in crediting him with playing a big part in the origins, formation and subsequent growth of European Unity and indeed the institution which we now call the 'EU'. However, he is hardly the Machiavellian devil Kipperdip tries to paint him as, nor indeed was he EVER a Marxist. (That was a genuinely laughable assertion KD).

In the First World War Monnet met with the French Political leadership and managed to convince them that the best way to ensure an allied victory (and an end to the senseless killing of millions) was for Britain and France to combine their war efforts. This was seen as the way forward at the time, which was not a bad effort for a 26 year old.

Although I wouldn't go as anywhere near as far as to say Monnet stopped the war, it could be argued that the principles behind his ideas led to the Allied Maritime Transport Council which certainly DID play a part in doing so.

By 1919 he'd been named Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations and is credited with helping to harness economic recoveries in several European countries that were struggling at the time.

By 1939 Monnet's Political influence and  proven economic and business acumen inspired Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill to accept a plan for a union of France and the United Kingdom to rival the Pact of Steel alliance between Germany and Italy. A plan essentially suggested by Monnet 25 years before this time.

In 1940 Monnet met with American President Roosevelt to launch a massive arms production program to supply the Allies with weapons. Later, in 1941, Roosevelt, with Churchill's agreement, launched the Victory Program, which basically brought the Americans directly into the war.
(After 1945, John Maynard Keynes is on record as stating that through his co-ordinating, Monnet had probably shortened World War II by one year).

So by this time, this 'Marxist' (stifles laughter) has worked directly with several British Prime Ministers, (including Winston Churchill) various French Premiers, a president of the United States and co-ordinated a massive railway building project at the direct request of one of the most powerful men in China.

Kipperdip is indeed right in quoting that Monnet said;
"Europe should be guided to the Superstate without the people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation"
(Jean Monnet, Paris, 3/4/1952).

However, Kipperdip conveniently neglected to point out that the above quote, in context, actually shows that Monnet understood that 'stealth' would be the only way to achieve the goal as too many people would be wrapped up in sovereignty, nationalism and such like to actually realise that what he envisaged was a progressive way forward for a continent that had torn itself apart (twice) within the space of a few decades and destroyed tens of millions of its own citizens.

Monnet for saw too many flag waving old men, caught up in tribalism, sovereignty and 'pride' in a country. Too many people like you KD. Looks like he was right.

Here's another quote;
"There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation..."
(Jean Monnet, Algiers, 5/8/1943)

The next few decades I'm sure everyone is familiar with, various plans and treaties evolve, we come to the Europe Coal and Steel Community, the common market and eventually where we are today, with the EU.

Monnet watched his country drawn into TWO world wars and lived in a continent absolutely ravaged economically, socially, morally and politically. Countries literally killed other countries, genocide, war, economic problems the like of which even Greece cannot come close to imagining.

Yes we ARE in the middle of a major economic situation right now. But I ask you this? Would you trade your situation now to go back to living in 1916 or in the 1940s? Would you? Really? I know I bloody wouldn't.

Monnet.... The 'Marxist'. I hope every time you contribute something to this forum KD that people remember that description of him and chuckle to themselves at your stupidity.

You paint him as a devil? For what exactly? Trying to stop wars and improve countries' economies? 
Personally, I'd stick his face on the back of a Euro, or better still, put him on the back of a tenner.

What has all this that you have googled, copied and pasted, added to and pretended it was all your own work got to do with the extra £350 million we are giving to the EU?

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

Perseus, surely the attached clip better describes the way this thread's heading...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nCKYEM8qRc

[Micksmate]

Here's a lot of it here Micksmate (who's mick by the way?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet

Does the fact that it's based on his wikipedia page make it any less true?

You should join Zippy in the 'debate', you can be Bungle.

Try answering my question big boy:  What has all this that you have googled, copied and pasted, added to and pretended it was all your own work got to do with the extra £350 million we are giving to the EU?" perhaps it's having to use your own words thats the problem.  I don't mind waiting.