STRAIGHT TALKING Evidence points to EU having a breakdown

FROM UKIP’S DEPUTY LEADER

PEOPLE with pre-pay energy meters spend about £80 a year more than those who pay quarterly.

That means they’re effectively subsidising those who pay by direct debit.

How can that possibly be fair?

The majority of those consumers using pre-pay meters are from the least well-off members of our society.

To me, this is not a million miles from the loan sharks making fortunes out of deprived people who can’t get credit elsewhere.

The poor should not be propping up the more fortunate.

That is a society completely upside down. EUROPE is falling apart at the seams – but you don’t have to take my word for it.

You might in any case expect a UKIP MEP to be of that opinion – so please, let’s look elsewhere for evidence.

Like Spain, where antiausterity supporters have finally had enough and are making massive gains across the country.

Like Greece, where their money has pretty much run out and they can’t afford to pay their debts.

Like France, where nationalists are on the rise and their pro-EU president François Hollande is ever more beleaguered.

In the middle of all this, though, we learn that France and Germany – always the most enthusiastic members of the larger members of the EU – are planning closer ties.

They want to have an even tighter political union than the one we have now – the one that is increasingly to the dislike of actual voters, if not some of their politicians.

And while this is going on, the Prime Minister invites the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to Chequers for an entirely pointless photo opportunity.

On the face of it, David Cameron opened negotiations for Britain’s future relationship with Europe.

But what he hopes to achieve is anyone’s guess – because he’s certainly not telling us yet.

Mr Cameron has, in any case, already indicated that in any future referendum he would campaign to stay in the EU.

And to be a member of the EU means to have unrestricted freedom of movement between member states – which is simply another way of saying “uncontrolled immigration”.

So, on the one hand we’ve got the PM pretending he recognises the will of the British people to finally have a say on our membership of the EU.

On the other, he’s offering tea and biscuits to Europe’s most senior figure and fully intending to campaign to stay in.

Bear in mind he wouldn’t have even considered a referendum if it were not for the steady rise of UKIP.

Then we have the Labour group, which until May 7 was resolutely against the idea of an in-out vote.

You may have forgotten – and Labour would now like you to – Tony Blair being wheeled out to say a referendum was a bad idea, presenting the notion that mere members of the public could not be trusted to vote the right way.

But that was until May 7, when those same members of the public waved Labour on their way for another five years.

So now they’re tripping over themselves to say a referendum would actually be the best thing since sliced bread and it can’t come along quickly enough.

I’m not alone in finding this U-turn quite astonishing – and insulting to Labour voters too.

Meanwhile, the European project continues to crumble in the eyes of everyone bar its most ardent supporters.

UKIP will be at the epicentre of the referendum debate.

And do you know why? Because we started it in the first place.