EU how we benefit

[Claadehol]

I am not really a political animal but where exactly is the EU helping basic Shetland industries?

 

I have just been reading that we may have to cull Shetland lamb because Romanian lamb can be produced cheaper, and are taking over traditional markets. All I keep hearing is how vital the single market is. Well! it aint helping here.

 

That comes on top of the frightening figures regarding our share of the fish from our waters. We gave so much away here.

 

Brexit may well be our saviour, as many now seem to be thinking.

[Ghostrider]

I've never been able to see what net gain was for us from EU membership, ever. When we went in we had a decent fishing industry and agriculture industry locally, now we have a much reduced and shaky agriculture industry and a reasonably bouyant but severely reduced fishing industry. Okay, we get some pennies back from Brussels in to both those industries, but is it even enough to compensate for how those industries have contracted under Brussels, let alone be "new" money to develop them.

 

Were it not for the money brought in from offshore and aquaculture activities which have developed locally, with no help from Brussels, since we joined, Shetland now would be a pretty poor and run down place. Certainly we have other industries, but nothing that has potential to be a major income source, with or without Brussels.

 

If the EU ever had an advantage with its single market concept its long since obsolete, its a global marketplace now, and by tying ourselves in to channeling all our exports and imports through a small trading bloc and whatever relationships they've developed with the rest of the world, we, and every other constituent nation of the EU is hving its hands tied and potential stifled instead of developed.

 

The EU might have worked had they concentrated more on a narrower north/south bloc of like nations, but to try a "one size fits all" approach from the Med to the Arctic circle and then add in an island nation as well, was always doomed to failure. There's a reason why, Canada, the US, Russia or China "works", but joining either the first two, or the second two together, or trying to make Africa or South America single entities never would. Similar latitudes have a certain commonality in their lifestyles over quite some distance, similar longtitudes simply don't.

[Colin]

What has the EU done for us? 

 

Well, for starters, it has woken the "political animal" in most of us and, some are no longer willing to be led around by the nose at the behest of duplicitous politicians and unelected bureaucrats who, for the most part, seem to be representing "big business" not voters.

 

They have also reduced the local fishing industry to a "rump".  Got rid of most of those messy boats, shore based support jobs, fish factories, seagulls etc. and, in so doing, taken a huge amount of money/jobs out of the local economy.

 

Not saying that things could have continued in the "old way" but, it's telling that around 60% of the available fish stock is now taken by foreign(non UK) boats..  I would be interested in knowing just how much is taken by Shetland boats..

 

They have also turned most of the local crofters into "subsidy junkies" although, in fairness, crofting was always a "subsistence level" occupation anyway.

 

I think that the original "common market" concept just might have worked but, I also think that the "United States of Europe" was always going to be a very "iffy" concept if only because some of the member countries were "more equal" than others and would have to spend a lot of time/money/effort supporting "basket case" economies. 

Also, the dictats and "leadership" displayed by some member states (note that word "states" that has crept in... states not countries) seems to be misguided.

 

The cost of membership seems to be very much more than cold hard cash and, it seems to me that, we are having to put in an awful lot more than we get out.

[Redrobbie99]

Our neighbors the Faroe Islands have a GDP of nearly $ 3 billion last year the majority of it fishing related . They are not in the EU of course and would not dream of joining as they are not prepared to sacrifice their fishing industry like the British did .

[whalsa]

Refreshing to see my own views echoed in the above posts. Still wondering why Shetlanders voted to Remain in the EU in June. Suckered in by media prophecies of doom? Lost touch with our vital industries? 

 

I don't know the reason but hopefully the story about the lambs and the shocking statistics about the fishing industry (be interesting if figures could be obtained for fish caught in Shetland waters) will show Islanders that we are being severely short changed.

[Frances144]

And this is where I tear myself in half.

 

I am pleased Brexit has been voted for and we are about to leave.

 

I am also pleased that the SNP want another ballot to leave the UK.

But......

 

I don't want to be part of an SNP that wants to be part of Europe.

 

(so, I will just crawl back under my rock)

[MuckleJoannie]

I don't have access to decent internet just now so I can't give you chapter and verse but the EU has poured millions into Shetland over the years. Fishing boats, fish factories, knitwear, infrastructure, the lot. The SIC has had dedicated EU staff to ensure we get our due.

[whalsa]

I don't have access to decent internet just now so I can't give you chapter and verse but the EU has poured millions into Shetland over the years. Fishing boats, fish factories, knitwear, infrastructure, the lot. The SIC has had dedicated EU staff to ensure we get our due.

Perhaps Joannie but how much has the EU taken out? Both through taxes from Government and fish caught in Shetland waters? 

[Colin]

I don't have access to decent internet just now so I can't give you chapter and verse but the EU has poured millions into Shetland over the years. Fishing boats, fish factories, knitwear, infrastructure, the lot. The SIC has had dedicated EU staff to ensure we get our due.

I would suggest that what the EU has "poured in" over the years is going to be significantly less than what they have taken out of the waters that we should(?) control.

Like I said earlier..  The cost should be measured in terms other than  cold hard cash..

[Suffererof1crankymofo]

I don't have access to decent internet just now so I can't give you chapter and verse but the EU has poured millions into Shetland over the years. Fishing boats, fish factories, knitwear, infrastructure, the lot. The SIC has had dedicated EU staff to ensure we get our due.

 

That's a fat lot of good if you had a full harbour of Shetland fishing boats before the EU and only a handful afterwards!  If the SIC EU staff were worth their salt, more would have been done about Whalsay's situation re fish factory and pier surely.

[Colin]

And this is where I tear myself in half.

 

I am pleased Brexit has been voted for and we are about to leave.

 

I am also pleased that the SNP want another ballot to leave the UK.

 

But......

 

I don't want to be part of an SNP that wants to be part of Europe.

 

(so, I will just crawl back under my rock)

Kind of pleased we are leaving myself but, not so happy with the snp going against a national vote.  I don't care what "reasons" they quote, it's just arrogance on their part that they think they can manipulate the electorate in order to achieve the "prime objective".

 

FWIW;

I don't want to be a part of scotland that is separate from the UK and, if the snp ever achieve that objective, I will be shouting long, load and, hard for crown dependency status which, imho, is a win/win for shetland anyway.

Then, if/when a 2nd referendum takes place, vote against scottish independence.

[rainbed]

I don't have access to decent internet just now so I can't give you chapter and verse but the EU has poured millions into Shetland over the years. Fishing boats, fish factories, knitwear, infrastructure, the lot. The SIC has had dedicated EU staff to ensure we get our due.

What fish factories ? most have closed down as have the knitwear factories . This EU money is in fact our own money being given back . For every pound we give them they give us back 50p . Do you have any idea of the value of the fish EU vessels take from Shetland waters each year ? At a rough guess i would say £100 million at least it could be much more . 

[Frances144]

I would definitely vote for Shetland to not be part of Scotland.

 

In my head it all makes perfect sense. 

[Da Burra Shop]

I would definitely vote for Shetland to not be part of Scotland.

 

In my head it all makes perfect sense. 

You'll be joining Wir Shetland then?

[Ghostrider]

I don't have access to decent internet just now so I can't give you chapter and verse but the EU has poured millions into Shetland over the years. Fishing boats, fish factories, knitwear, infrastructure, the lot. The SIC has had dedicated EU staff to ensure we get our due.

 

That's fine and well, but what does the bottom line look like after 43 years?

 

How much has membership cost us in terms of letting other EU members take our natural resources gratis, in additional costs to business and industry through red tape and regulation of questionable purpose, in markets denied because big brother in Brussels had some other back to scratch, etc etc.

 

There's a perfectly good argument to be made that if our hands hadn't been so tied by distant folk without a care or a clue, we would have had much less need for such hand outs, we'd have had of our own to pay for it ourselves, and even if not, had the country not been pouring so much in to a bottomless pit they'd been able to give whatever Brussels could, plus a whole chunk more.

 

What pro-EU and/or pro Scottish Parliment people don't seem to be grasping is that each layer of government by design swallows a percentage of taxation just to exist. In the last 43 years we've gone from two layers to pay for, to four. What percentage of every pound raised in taxation in 1972 was lost to the public just to keep the machinery of government running, and what percentage raised in taxation in 2015 went to the same place? My guess is that its double, and what are we getting in return for it, unless double the red tape. Nothing that I can see, or have ever seen.

 

Somehow the UK managed to pull itself up by the bootstraps from the brink of bankruptcy in 1945 to be a relatively successful and prosperous nation again in well under 28 years. Then we got conned in to believing we needed to be part of something bigger to sustain and continue to thrive. Instead we've been in a slow but steady decline and downward spiral for 43 years, and folk still swallow that we're doomed if we cut the apron strings from the very thing that arrived with the commencement of our decline, and has quite happily presided over it. Even if you swallow it was caused by something other than the EU, the EU has still failed to do what it said on the tin in '73 - be the vehicle to continue to sustain us and allow prosperity.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Ghostrider