Dear Editor, According to Neena Gill MEP (Post, Oct 4): “The UK exports more to Holland than it does to the entire Commonwealth”. That’s like me saying all my post goes to the Royal Mail.
Such statements made by those who desperately try to defend the indefensible, try to deceive people into thinking that there are benefits to membership of the EU – which there are not. The Dutch ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are like vast Royal Mail sorting offices. Container ships go there, their loads are then sorted and put onto other ships which are then dispatched to all points on the globe. By using the above sweeping comments Neena Gill can make such claims, even though the final destinations are to places where we do most of our trade such as the USA.
In fact, when you look at British trade in total, of the 100 per cent of trade 80 per cent is internal, which includes you buying your Birmingham Post at the corner shop. Of the 20 per cent that is left for exports, around 60 per cent is claimed to be to the EU and the other 40 per cent to non-EU nations, but that does not take into account the above Amsterdam and Rotterdam effect. Although there are no accurate figures for this effect, it probably reverses the figures to around 40 per cent of trade to the EU.
The end result of this is that we are being asked to sacrifice 100 per cent of our sovereignty to the EU in return for around 10 per cent of total trade. It seems a pretty poor deal to me.
Derek Bennett,
Regional Liaison Officer,
UK Independence Party.
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