Useless EU

If DAVID Cameron thinks a deal on immigration will silence the critics of EU membership, he may as well be Don Quixote. The big issue is democracy itself.

The European Union is gradually evolving into a Soviet system, with no accountability to the public. We can’t elect the Presidents of the Commission or Parliament. We can’t elect the Commissioners, all of whom are apparatchiks nominated by temporary political leaders from member states. Many have been rejected from seats of power by their electorates.

as the number of member states has grown, so has the number of commissioners, each wielding considerable power, but answerable only to their political masters.

The result is a bureaucracy that is out of control and with it goes any chance of managing expenditure. Though many member states, the UK included, are enduring considerable economic stress following the 2007/8 crash, the Commission is awarding itself significant salary increases, adding to their already generous rewards.

Yet it is many years since their finances have been audited properly and independently.

The European Parliament, which should be focused on holding the Commissioners to account, is effectively supine, which is unsurprising as MEPs feed from the same trough.

The whole structure is supported by an ever-growing army of civil servants who pay only a nominal rate of tax on their generous salaries, totally unrelated to their productivity or efficiency. Over time, the ability of any one state to block irrational legislation has been whittled away by the increased use of majority voting.

The result is that the larger number of ‘dependent’ states in the Union is able to drive through legislation that benefits the less productive states at the expense of the strong economies.

This will eventually lead to the economic decline of the entire Union.

The immigration crisis is a symptom, not a cause, and, as in medicine, won’t be cured by applying a palliative just to relieve the symptoms.

Our Government is aware that if it steals too much from wealth producers to subsidise the unproductive, the wealth producers will pack up and leave. Britain should tell the EU that we, too, can pack up and go.

DIGBY HARPER, Benson, Oxon.