The Great European Rip-off: How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU Is Taking Control of Our Lives [Kindle Edition]

This book is a scathing analysis of the EU's corruption and power-grabbing, led by Britain's ruling class. The authors, David Craig, a management consultant and author, and Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, show how the EU strangles industry, destroys jobs, cuts personal freedoms, wrecks the environment and impoverishes developing countries.

The EU Commissioners get £1.7 million for their five-year term. MEPs get vast salaries, expenses and pensions - £2.1 million for five years. Britain's MEPs are to get a 32% pay rise this June and a new tax rate of 13-17%, halving their taxes.

Under the Common Agricultural Policy, Scotland's biggest landowners get £230,000 a year each. 85% of the CAP's annual £62 billion budget goes to the richest 18% of farms. The CAP also subsidises EU exports to the third world, and puts duties on their imports to us. For every pound of EU aid, the CAP takes away two.

Last year, the European Court of Justice ruled that the EU's freedom of movement laws entitled foreign workers to get Irish benefits even after they had returned home. The Court's remit is to promote EU integration; the only way to change any of its decisions is for all 27 member state governments to agree to do so.

After the French and Danish Noes to the EU Constitution, the EU's leaders, Blair included, absurdly claimed "the results do not call into question citizens' attachment to the constitution of Europe." Brown is still trying to sneak through the Constitution without a referendum, in the Lisbon Treaty. As a senior British civil servant said in 1971, "Of course this is the end of British democracy as we have known it, but if it is properly handled the people won't know what's happened until the end of the century. With any luck, old boy, by then I'll be dead."

The authors say the EU needs reform. They write, "countries like Britain should be permitted to declare their utilities like energy and water as strategic national resources." Should be permitted? By the same EU that wants to steal our resources?

After showing for nearly 300 pages how the EU seizes powers, they say it should shed those powers. After showing how it rides over democracy, they say it should promote democracy. They call on MEPs to vote themselves out of existence and on the Commission to stop issuing regulations. They say the EU should scrap the CAP, yet they have shown that the French would never vote for this.

They note that, "a useful question might be whether [the EU] can ever be reformed." Their book gives us the answer - No. The authors have proved that the EU is bad for Britain - so we need to demand a referendum on the Constitution, and we must leave this rubbish club.