Brexit News: The Lisbon Treaty and the true cost

On Jan. 1, 2010, after decades of planning, the EU became an official global imperialist power, underpinned by a federal constitution that binds member countries to a supreme head in Brussels. For centuries, European rulers such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler had been unsuccessful in their goal of dominating Britain. But on that first day of 2010, when the EU presidency and foreign ministry came into force under the Lisbon Treaty, Signed by Gordon Brown and David Milliband, the United Kingdom finally became officially subservient to Europe.

Many Britons were deeply concerned. “Britain is no longer a sovereign nation,” wrote British politician Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph the morning the treaty was enacted. “At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.”

The Lisbon Treaty “tramples [Britain’s] Magna Carta into the dust,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lamented in the Telegraph. “The founding texts of the English constitution—charter, petition, bill of rights—have one theme in common: They create nothing. They assert old freedoms; they restore lost harmony. In this, they guided America’s Revolution, itself a codification of early colonial liberties,” he wrote (Dec. 6, 2009).

Contrast this with the Lisbon Treaty/EU constitution. Evans-Pritchard correctly asserted that “insiders hijacked the process” of its creation. These insiders were unelected elites who worked for years seeking to enforce their undemocratic constitution on Europeans by the most undemocratic of means. And the Lisbon Treaty was a key part of those efforts.

In these maneuvers, Germany and France obtained mechanisms that gave them greater sway over Europe, while Britain’s power was diminished. The Lisbon Treaty, according to global intelligence company Stratfor, placed Germany and France in “key positions they can use to increase their influence over the European Union’s inner workings and important policy areas” and allows them to “take charge of the European Union’s functions” (Dec. 1, 2009).

Britain Paying Out

Europe blamed the financial fiasco that began in 2008 on the Anglo-Saxon model, which relies heavily on free-flowing credit. In response, the EU intensified its creation of a regulatory regime replete with laws, regulations and red tape designed to undermine and destroy London as the financial heart of Europe.

“The English are the big losers in this business,” said Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France at the time. Economically, the people of Britain are indeed the big losers in the EU, but the losses are not limited to the banking sector. EU regulations now touch almost every level of every industry in Britain.

“If you want to build something, grow something, mince something, scrap something, recycle something, burn something, paint something, bake something, package something, or do a myriad of other things, there is a sheaf of densely typed regulations just for you,” said Matthew Elliott, coauthor of The Great European Rip-off. “In total, red tape from Brussels adds another £100 billion [us$166 billion] of lost income, extra expenditure and forfeited economic growth to the bill.”

Elliott and other economists estimate that Britain’s total cost to be in the EU—factoring in all the harmful impacts of all the policies and regulations—is almost $200 billion a year. That equals more than $3,000 for each man, woman and child.

Although EU cheerleaders try to discredit any data that casts Europe in a negative light, the evidence proves that membership in the EU is a net cost for the Brits. What remained to be seen was how long Britain would continue to fight what was already a lost sovereignty battle and whether it would leave the European Union or be kicked out.