REASONS FOR LEAVING..

OK, I confess.  I voted 27 months ago for the UK to leave the European Union.  There were many reasons why I did, some of which were perhaps bordering on the trivial - personal ones connected with my own and my late father`s military experiences  which rather made the idea of being a subject of a United States of Brussels less than appealing.

Other more substantial reasons included the chance for the UK to regain its independence following its loss of sovereignty and to regain control of our own affairs which, for an island nation, is probably more relevant than if you originate on continental Europe.  But there are bits of the EU way of doing things that are frankly utterly unacceptable.  Amongst them are things such as the fact that their accounts have not been signed off by their own auditors for over 20 years now and the sheer nonsense and vast expense of decamping from Brussels to Strasbourg each month in order to pander to Gallic hauteur.  

And another reason was rather quietly reported just today when the European Court of Justice decided that details of the way in which MEPs spend their expenses will remain secret.  Now  each Member of the European Parliament is entitled to spend £3,900 a month on `expenses,`  but the European Court has ruled that having to prove how that money is spent might breach the MEPs privacy.   In total, the annual cost of these expenses amounts to about £35million all paid for by the taxpayer, of course.

So it seems that the European Court`s decision means that I will never know how the MEPs spend the chunky amount of tax I have to pay towards their `expenses.`   Surely that is a breach of my own privacy in itself in that I think I should have a right to know where my money is going?  Not a sufficient reason of itself to vote leave, I grant you, but yet another nail in the coffin of any thoughts I might ever have to doubt the way in which  I cast my vote all those months ago.

Time to reset the privacy button, I think.