The Myth of “Government by Fax”

Extract from an open letter to David Cameron from David Phipps, a consituent 4 January 2013

“….Let us deal with this assertion that Norway and Switzerland have to obey all the rules of the single market but don’t have any say over what they are…. You are fully aware that your statement belies the way most single market legislation is made. It is well known that most proposals, by the time they reach the Council for a vote are…unable to be changed: consequently the voting issue is the last and least important part of the process. Not least, a huge amoung of technical legislation is formulated at a global or regional level, in bodies such as UNECE (on which Norway is represented), and then handed down to EU institutions as “Diqules” which cannot, in substance, be changed. Thus Norway…has a considerable say in the nature of regulation, long before it gets to the EU.

You are also aware that as members of EFTA both Norway and Switzerland are represented on over
200 EEA committees which assist in the framing of Single Market legislation. You are also aware that, as members of EFTA, those nations have the abilitiy to refuse to implement any Directive that the European Commission produces; something that Norway did in respect of the 3rd Postal Directive, one which this country has to implement via the Postal Services Act 2011. You keep talking about “influence”….yet you know damn well that with the steady gravitation to Qualified Majority Voting, the UK’s influence in the EU is being diluted to nothing…”

As a full member of the EU, Britain had to accept the Postal Service Directive which is ruining our Post Office and Royal Mail services. Norway was simply able to say “No thanks”. Yet the mainstream media allowed Mr. Cameron to get away with “I don’t think it’s right to aim for a status like Norway or Sweden where basically you have to obey all the rules …but you don’t have a say over what they are.” Not one broadcaster or newspaper challenged him – but the informed internet does!

 FREE TRADE VERSUS THE “SINGLE MARKET”

We sell about 10% (and falling) of our Gross National Product (GNP) to EU countries. We sell
10% of GNP (and rising) to the rest of the world. The remaining 80% is purely domestic. Yet we have to apply “Single Market Rules” to 100% of our economy for the sake of the 10% (and falling) which we sell to the EU. The EU itself calculates that the cost of those rules amounts to
5% of all our GNP. Other countries which are not in the Single Market do have FREE TRADE agreements with the EU and do not have to carry this cost on the trade done internally or with countries not in the EU.

LORD STODDART OF SWINDON submitted a written question about free trade negotiations between the EU and Japan, Canada and Singapore. He asked, if like the UK, those countries had to adopt the laws governing the Single Market before they would be allowed to sell in the EU.

Replying for the government, LORD GREEN responded “It is not the case that as a result of these trade negotiations the countries concerned will have to adopt all the legislation and regulations that apply to EU member states.”

LORD STODDART commented “The genie is out of the bottle here. For decades the apologists for EU membership have parroted the tired argument that Britain must be a member because it would otherwise have to accept all the legislation and regulations from
Brussels without having a say in how they are developed. This answer, once and for all, blows that argument out of the water.”