BETTER OFF OUT

Each MEP costs taxpayers £1.8 million

Open Europe has published a comparison between the cost of the European Parliament and the cost of the UK Parliament, which finds that the European Parliament costs taxpayers a staggering £1.8 million for each MEP per year. This is in contrast to the House of Commons, which costs taxpayers £364,000 for each member per year, and the House of Lords, which costs £208,000 per member per year.  MORE

Major Westminster breakthrough for BETTER OFF OUT

In the week after a BBC Politics Show opinion poll showed 55% of the British people want to leave the European Union (EU), cross-party Members in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons have come together to call for an end to the United Kingdom's membership of the EU.  Members of this joint group include The Rt. Hon. The Lord Tebbit, The Baroness Cox, Austin Mitchell (Labour Party MP for Great Grimsby) and Peter Robinson MP, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.

The purpose of the group is to inform public opinion and hold the Government to account regarding the billions of pounds spent on membership fees and unnecessary regulations estimated at £112 billion per annum by the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Day by day we witness our sovereignty slipping away from this country as the economy becomes increasingly crippled by endless regulations imposed on us by the European Union - such as the directives on working time, chemicals, landfill, water, fishing etc.

In practice it has proved impossible to reform or influence this process through Parliament - the loss of Parliamentary sovereignty goes to the heart of our democracy and withdrawal from the EU would ultimately result in democracy being returned to the UK.

The joint BETTER OFF OUT group is chaired by Lord Vinson, a Conservative Party Peer, who founded the Centre for Policy Studies with Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph Bt.

The 32 Members of the joint BETTER OFF OUT group are:

Douglas Carswell MP
Baroness Cox
Philip Davies MP
Nigel Dodds MP
Jeffrey Donaldson MP
Philip Hollobone MP
Baroness Knight of Collingtree DBE
The Earl of Liverpool
William McCrea MP
Dr. Ian Paisley MP
Lord Mancroft
Austin Mitchell MP
Lord Monson
Lord Moran KCMG
Lord Palmer
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Lord Quinton FBA
Iris Robinson MP
Peter Robinson MP
The Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford DL
David Simpson MP
Dr. Bob Spink MP
Lord Stevens of Ludgate
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
Lord Swinfen
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Tebbit
Lord Tombs
Lord Vinson LVO DL (Chairman)
Lord Willoughby de Broke
Sammy Wilson MP
Ann Winterton MP
Sir Nicholas Winterton MP