[Lucysgirl]

Apologies for being late to respond - I've had computer problems.

I have a cloth ear when opponents on any side can only sneeringly parrot the phrase "fear factor tactics" as I want to hear what facts that people wearing red, yellow, blue, etc. rosettes have experience of. I can then surf and do my own research and come to my own conclusions.
About five years ago Cameron said that he thought the next Treaty would take place in 2016 and I mistakenly thought that if he won the election he would hold the Referendum AFTER the Treaty and been negotiated but before it had been signed off. This forthcoming Treaty would include signatories of the usual diehard extreme leftwing socialists aswell as more moderate and new members who could ally themselves to new ideas for the future of the EU.. It's a shame Boris mentioned the notion of voting NO with the expectation of an immediate renegotiation by frightened EU Nations who want us to stay because of the international clout (and money) that we have. I had the same idea but now that the cat is out of the bag the other EU members know they are on firm ground.

(1) The argument that we buy more from the EU nations than we sell to them. I have two answers to this.
(a) We are not self sufficient: For this reason we have always had to import raw materials such as food (grain, etc) as well as wool, cotton, etc. Additionally, now that we have already dug up all of our reserves of iron and high quality coal to keep our iron and steel mills producing we are

(b) A rich man buys more than a poor man, thus as a rich nation we buy more than poor little Belgium, Greece, Italy, etc.
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(2) The membership of the EU costs a lot of money that we can use on other things. Membership of any club, whether it's a keep fit club or the EU club they all cost entry money. We have to look at what the market & its alternatives have to offer. We know that we could leave the EU and do a deal similar to other nations but we'd still have to pay to be part members and we wouldn't have a say in any of the Treaties. I don't have figures for costs of all the Associations that the UK belongs to, i.e. The EU, the G12, the UN, the WHO, etc. etc.but I should imagine that whatever alternative(s) we put in place of the full EU membership it will still cost eye watering amounts of money and I doubt we would save much in the long run. The EU would probably be a bit like British Telecom when its customers left them in droves. Where once they charged for the landline plus whatever calls were made, they now send a minimum invoice for the landline plus an amount for imaginary "family" calls that never took place..

(3) We don't need the EU and can go it alone and make our own trade deals with other nations. Of course we can, we did it before and we could do it again. We've always had innovative Brits whose products left the shelf as soon as they arrived. However, there's a difference between the costings of what we used to sell and what we sell now. Since WWII the costings of our products and services have risen to include; H&S measures, EEC Standard testing costings, paid tea breaks, maternity pay, etc. I'm asking myself which Nationalities are paid enough to buy what we have to offer? Would the majority of people in countries that do not have these overheads affford to, or be prepared to, pay extra for our products? I can't imagine the majority of the billions of workers around the world that don't get benefits such as the NHS, paid tea breaks, maternity & child benefits being able to afford our high prices. Bryan and I used to export a modest amount of our products around the world (but not inside the EU) - the form filling was horrendous and I know from my son's experience that goods he's bought over the years from Scandinavia, Australia and USA he's had extra banking & exchange rate costs plus he's had to travel to Preston to pay import tax. It will take a few years to negotiate our own trade deals to give our export/importers reasonable import taxes, especially as we already know that the USA protects its own, they even refused entry to tons of emergency goods sent them a few years back.
I'm all ears.
Rena