EU membership was beneficial for the UK economy from the 1970s until the 1990s when it became stagnant. (Immigration not mentioned)Is our net £10 billion contribution to the EU 'a small price to pay for tariff free access to the EU market'? If we left the EU with no trade deal – inconceivable given the tariff free zone from Iceland to Turkey – our exports would face EU tariffs averaging just 2.4% (Trade Policy Research Centre, Discussion Paper, Ronald Stewart-Brown and Ben Lodge March 2014.) But our net contribution to the EU budget is equivalent to a 7% tariff. Paying 7% to avoid 2-3%.So if we left before finalising a trade deal we could use our contribution to ensure our exporters are no worse off (To avoid challenge under WTO rules, support for exporters to offset tariffs would be channeled through an Export Growth Fund or tax relief.) and still have several billion £s left over. Our partners will not delay a deal once they realise British exporters will not suffer, whereas theirs would face tariffs to enter the UK – their biggest market.Does 'EU membership help us negotiate free trade deals with the rest of the world'? Tariff free access to the fast growing, protected markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America would be worthwhile. Unfortunately, EU membership prevents us negotiating free trade deals – and the EU has negotiated few deals for us: none with China, India, Brazil.Does the EU's size mean it gets better deals than we could alone? The more countries involved in a trade deal the harder, slower and worse the result. All 28 EU members have a veto on their negotiations which is why EU deals take so long and exclude so much. Bilateral deals are simpler, quicker and more comprehensive. Hence Chile has deals covering countries with collective GDP five times the EU's deals. Even Iceland - population less than Croydon - has a Trade Agreement with China – as does Switzerland.A study of bilateral deals by Switzerland, Korea, Singapore and Chile (Myth and Paradox of the Single Market by Michael Burrage, Civets 2016) shows they boost trade far more than the EU's. UK exports have grown slower under two thirds of EU trade deals.Although services are particularly important to the UK, a third of EU deals exclude services whereas Switzerland invariably includes them. So could an independent UK. Would Britain have to renegotiate from scratch the EU's existing trade deals? Under the 'principle of continuity' in international law we can novate existing EU treaties to the UK. We should start that process ahead of leaving the EU.Will we lose out if we don't help shape the rules? People assume Britain benefits from participating in setting these rules. But rules provide a framework within which all companies operate – not an advantage to any individual country. Britain set the rules of tennis but rarely wins Wimbledon. British exports to the EU have grown less rapidly since the Single Market than they did before 1993, less than our partners' and much less than non-EU countries' exports. Maybe that is partly because we suffer EU regulations on 100% of our companies (costing our economy billions of £s) whereas non-EU firms need only comply with EU regulations on activities carried out within the EU.Losses since the 1990sCadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata,the same company who have trashed UK steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.Peugeot closed its Raton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant. British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales. Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Polandwith EU grant, once employed 1,200. M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant. Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant. Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant. Sekisui Alves said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding. Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs. Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase. JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry. UK airports are owned by a Spanish company. Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company. Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies. The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online. Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada. 39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU, The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK.The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently. Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Not mentioned is the UKs non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing. I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany. If you believe the EU is a good idea,1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party. 2/ You haven't had to deal with EU bureaucracy tearing your business down. The truth is out there if you look. Our companies sold off to profit just the rich. When everything we owned has eventually been sold off, who do they then hit to get them out of trouble? The poor, with things like bedroom tax, NHS cuts, fire brigade cuts, defence cuts, police cuts, school closures. The UK shouldn't want to be a mere region of a European federal state ruled from Brussels, dominated by Germany with the French in tow and subject to French-style regulations, state-control and taxation levels. The UK shouldn't have to to pay foreign aid to subsidise French farmers, unused Portuguese motorways and non-existent bridges in Greece, not to mention 5 press secretaries for Martin Schulz and chauffeured limos for EU officials - and of course the €1.4 billion ECB building in Frankfurt, the €300million EU Presidential palace in Brussels or the €8billion EU diplomatic service or indeed the 10,000 (including UKIP MEPs) EU employees who earn more than our Prime Minister and pay next to nothing in tax.MEPs Salaries & expenses€8020.53 per month basic salary€306 per day subsistence allowance €21,379 staff allowance€4,320 General Expenditure AllowanceFirst or second class travel plus a €4,264 annual allowanceAll MEPs who step down or lose their seats are entitled to a "transitional allowance" of at least €46,000 The allowance provides one month's salary for each year an MEP has been in parliament, with a minimum of six months and a maximum of 24mthsMEPs who joined prior to 2009 are entitled to second pensions in addition to their statutory pension. The longest-serving MEPs accrue statutory pensions of up to €64,000 – 70% of their salary. They are entitled to draw this non-contributory pension, which is funded solely by the taxpayer, at age 63. An "actuarial deficit" in the second pension scheme will require an extra £187m of taxpayer funding to plug the gap. UK taxpayers have already contributed more than £100m to the fund