1-Control immigration & introduce a skills based system
EU immigrants pay more into the system than they take out (from the government’s own figures)
2-The UK Parliament makes our law not the EU
The UK Parliament already makes our law. The EU can only “direct”, hence the term “EU Directive”. The UK can always refuse to implement directives. Also, while we are IN the EU we have a veto. Outside, we will lose it, but will still be subject to any directives implemented by our trading partners or the WTO.
3-Sign our own trade deals
With whom? Most of the countries we wish to trade with already have deals with the EU which are much better for the UK than any we can negotiate as a small independent nation… Or do you mean the mythical deal with the USA which will result in us putting food safety and the NHS at risk?
4- Save £55 million a day in fees
This has been proven time and time again to be an outright lie. Yes, the UK does pay money to the EU, but nowhere near that amount. It is by way of a subscription to an exclusive club which gives us a lot of benefits in return. Also, please note that nations like the UK deal in TRILLIONS, so what you’re actually arguing over is “pocket change”.
5- Regain control of UK fishing waters
In order to get a Free Trade Deal with the EU post-Brexit, we would likely have to negotiate away any of that benefit anyway.
6- We will not be signed up to the TTIP
Trump has already killed the TTIP negotiations. As of this moment it doesn’t exist.
7- We can stop future EU members e.g. Turkey/Albania/Serbia get free movement to the UK
There is no chance of any of those countries being accepted into the EU in the near future. Turkey, especially, is unlikely to satisfy membership conditions for at least 20 years, and in any case while the UK remains in the EU it retains a veto, so we can unilaterally deny membership to them.
8-Withdraw from the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) so we don’t pay for EU farms
You mean like Welsh sheep farms? UK farmers benefit massively from the CAP, and are currently very concerned that Brexit could put them out of business.
9-Cheaper food-being outside the CAP provides cheaper food prices
Mostly because of cheap imports from the USA and the Far East, lowering food safety standards and putting UK farmers out of work!
10-Reopen UK fisheries creating thousands of jobs
See the reply to 5.
11-Cheaper energy prices-we can scrap EU green laws
Seriously? Are you a climate change denier or what?
12-Scrap the EU’s Common external tariff which increases the cost of imports from outside the EU (cheaper goods & food)
With the potential loss of hundreds of thousands of UK jobs!
13-Introduce a British Bill of Rights-EU members must sign up to ECtHR
Leaving the EU will NOT take the UK out of the purview of the European Court Of Human Rights. That court has NOTHING to do with the EU.
14- No chance of the UK joining the Euro in the future
There is no chance of that anyway, unless the UK requests it. In fact, there is more chance of the UK ending up in the Euro by leaving the EU, because if we ever needed to rejoin the EU, it would be an absolute requirement. We wouldn’t be allowed to rejoin on the current terms with our current exceptions.
15-The UK won’t be forced to join an EU army with UK armed forces under Brussels control
There is no EU army and no plans to create one, unless you mean NATO, which already exists, has existed since shortly after WWII, and is headquartered in Brussels with a Chairman in the UK and a Commander in the USA.
16-We will not have to bailout Euro countries & we just did Greece
The bulk of the money to bail out Greece came from Germany, and in any case, even if the UK hadn’t been in the EU it would probably still have contributed, as Greece going bankrupt would have caused a worldwide recession and taken down UK banks which already had loans to Greece outstanding.
17-We can use the money we pay the EU on Britain e.g. NHS
The actual NET amount the UK pays to the EU, after discounts, exceptions and the money received by UK farmers, scientific projects, etc, is tiny. Whilst the UK is certainly a net contributor, along with France and Germany, the amount it contributes is pennies by comparison to the trillions of pounds that free trade with the EU is worth.
18-Protect UK culture & national identity
Protect them from what? When has the EU ever threatened UK culture or national identity? Seriously! Name a single example!
19-The UK would be an independent sovereign nation
It already is and always will be! The same as France is still France, Germany is still Germany and Spain is still Spain.
20-We can repeal EU regulations holding back business particularly small firms
Aha! You mean all those pesky rules about workers’ rights and consumer safety! Yeah! Who needs those?
21- The UK can take back our own seat at the World Trade Organisation
OMG… Now I’m actually laughing! The UK never lost its seat at the WTO. All individual nations of the EU have a seat at the WTO, but the EU as a whole also has one too, so most of the time (because we generally agree with the EU on trade, and the EU supports its members) the UK ends up with two votes instead of one.
22-It will be easier to crackdown on tax avoidance because EU free movement of money allows firms to avoid tax
Quite the opposite in fact. The EU has just introduced a new directive requiring people like Aaron Banks and Jacob Rees Mogg to declare their offshore funds and trusts. The UK has yet to ratify it, and following a Boris Brexit we never will, hence protecting the UK ultra-rich from millions in taxes.
23-Outside the EU we can require immigrants to pay for NHS treatment
Unless (as is likely) the UK has a reciprocal arrangement with the EU so UK ex-pats, travellers and tourists can still obtain free treatment in other EU countries. Oh, and by the way, the EU has no rules concerning health care for immigrants from outside the EU. Any relief of charges in the NHS for non-EU immigrants is because of UK laws, and treaties with member countries of the Commonwealth
24- The EU is undemocratic-Parliament will be fully accountable to Brits again
Erm… I’m sure we just had an EU election… Didn’t we? That one where the Brexit Party ended up with a load of seats? Or did I just dream that?
25- We could introduce a law for British jobs for British workers
Or we could just provide the training for British workers so they have the skills that are necessary for those British jobs! The NHS and the Social Care industry couldn’t survive without medical and nursing staff from the EU and the Commonwealth.
26- We can charge EU students international university fees for using UK universities
In most cases, where EU students pay less, it is because of EU subsidies, so the UK universities still see the full payment for the courses.
27-We can stop immigrants claiming tax credits, social housing & benefits
We already can. In Spain, for example (which I’m pretty sure is in the EU!), you have to pay into the system for a minimum period before you can take anything out of it. The UK benefits system is entirely legislated by the UK government.
28- The EU forbids state aid so the UK is unable to support UK industry e.g. steel
This is true, but once one country starts throwing state aid at an industry, all the other countries follow suit, resulting in artificially cheap products and devaluation of the entire industry worldwide. Also how much extra tax are you prepared to pay in order to fund that state aid of industry?
29- EU trade, when we joined the EU was 37% of world GDP it is now 17%
True, but not because the EU market has shrunk. It’s because other countries’ markets, like that of China, have accelerated.
30- The UK is the world 5th biggest economy & EU’s biggest export market
Actually the US is the EU’s biggest export market, not the UK, but the EU is certainly the UK’s biggest export market by a large margin.
31- The EU undermines UK democracy because we are constantly outvoted by other EU nations
98% of the votes in the EU have gone the way the UK voted. Among the 2% which didn’t were laws we now treasure like those on LGBT equality.
32- The EU has not had its accounts signed off for 20 years
Total lie and known to be so since BEFORE the referendum. I shall leave this here by way of a reality check: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36276175
33-EU students would not be entitled to UK student loans, currently they haven’t repaid £40m
True, but guess what? A) The money comes from the student’s home country via the EU, B) New reciprocal arrangements after Brexit would continue to offer the same student loans, and C) UK students studying in other EU countries get precisely the same.
34-After Brexit,controlled immigration will increase wages & take pressure of public services
There is much debate over this. Writing it as “fact” is misleading at best. Current evidence is that new immigrants to an area (even intra-national immigrants, like people moving from the North of England to the South, for example) only depress the wages of the other immigrants in the area. They have no measurable effect on overall wage levels. Also, EU migrants into the UK currently contribute more into the local economy in taxes than they take out.

35-The trade deficit between the EU & UK is almost £92 billion a year in the EU’s favour
Actually, on latest government provided figures, it’s £64 billion… And Brexit won’t change that, any more than Trump’s tariffs will change the $170 billion deficit they have with the EU. The only ways to change that are either to increase UK productivity or convince the UK people to give up their European luxuries and “buy British”. Maybe ditch your morning Spanish orange juice and start the day with good old British tap water, eh?
36- The EU waste billions of pounds of British money on useless projects.
You mean like farming and education? Possibly the new carbon neutral social housing in Norwich, or subsidies for renewable energy research? Oh! Hold on! They paid for the “Angel Of The North” in Gateshead, and much of last year’s “City Of Culture” celebrations in Hull! Is that what you’re talking about?
37- We can reintroduce UK passports without the EU mark on them
Sorry, but now I’m just giggling! I’m not even justifying that with a reply!
38- If an EU nation gives a non EU immigrant their passport they get unrestricted access to the UK
Ugh… They don’t give out passports to migrants any more than the UK does. They merely issue “Residency” which is a separate document carried alongside their original passport. With that, they’re free to travel and work around most of mainland Europe, but not in the UK, because we are outside the Schengen area. Full citizenship and passports are normally only issued to genuine refugees, usually after many years of residency. If you don’t believe me, try applying for a German passport even as a UK citizen!
39-The UK can act as an example to other eurosceptic EU nations & encourage them to quit e.g. Holland/France
And that would be a good thing? Ditching 70 years of peace and cooperation in Europe? For what? Chlorinated chicken from the USA? Hmmmm
40- The UK can control our own VAT currently the EU set the bands
No! The EU sets a “base rate” of 15% to ensure a level playing field. If they didn’t, another country could reduce or remove VAT unilaterally, and give themselves an unfair trading advantage over the UK. VAT goes to the UK government, NOT to the EU. Also, the UK already chooses to have a higher rate of VAT than the base rate, and after Brexit it would be more likely to rise than to fall.
41- The UK only gets 49p back from the EU for every £1 we put in
Not sure how you worked that out. The UK rebate alone is set at 66% which means it gets 66p back straight away. Following that, the EU returns more in farm subsidies, research grants, grants to the arts, subsidies for “depressed areas” like some areas of Northern England, etc, etc, etc… In reality, for every £1 the UK puts in, we get back up to 92p. The remainder can be regarded as the cost of “club membership” of the richest trading “club” in the world!
42- The EU is a threat to the UK finance sector
That is just SO wrong, in so many ways. If anything, the biggest threat to the UK finance sector would be a no deal Brexit!
43- The average British household would be £1000 a year better off after Brexit
The government’s OWN economic projections show British households WORSE off after Brexit. Under a no deal Brexit, each household could be £2,600 a year poorer. I stress, once again, that is from THE UK GOVERNMENT’S OWN FIGURES!

44- The UK has under 10% of MEP’s & only 1 vote of 28 in the Council
Of course! The UK is one of 28 members! How many votes would you like? And the number of MEP’s is calculated based on the size of the population in each country, which is why Germany, UK, France and Italy have by far the most MEP’s in the EU Parliament. Aside from that, the UK has a veto on most issues, because any important legislation requires the unanimity of the House.
45- Open Europe says the top 100 EU rules cost the UK £33 billion to implement
Have you checked what those rules are, and whom they protect? Just from the top 5, there are renewable energy subsidies, contributions to climate change projects, and the Working Time Directive, which ensures that EU countries can’t descend into a “sweat shop economy”. I’m sure Boris, Mogg and their rich industrialist backers would love to get rid of those!
46- Stop immigrants claiming child benefits for children that don’t even live in the UK
The UK could deal with that within the EU. It requires reform of the UK’s own benefits legislation, which has been tabled and long needed anyway, but is being pushed to the back-burner, along with lots of other much-needed legislation, by the amount of time Parliament is spending on Brexit.
47-The UK is not able to take skilled non EU immigrants because we are overwhelmed by unskilled EU immigrants
The quotas for non-EU migrants are set completely separately by the UK, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. The biggest pool of unskilled migrant labour in the UK is not from the EU, it’s from the Commonwealth. Most unskilled EU workers are seasonal, and many industries like fruit farming couldn’t survive without them.
48- Between 2009 & 2014 the UK voted against 576 EU proposals in the EU Parliament, 485 became law (84%)
Not true! Since 1999, the UK has voted against 2% of EU proposals, and were successful 95% of the time. Here are the full fact-checked figures: https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-uk-influence/
49-The EU took the UK to court 23 times between 2007-2011 for not implementing EU law
Very difficult to check this one. Which court? What do you mean by “EU Law”? In fact, the EU rarely resorts to the courtS (Justice or Human Rights), preferring in-house negotiations, but of the few times in the last 40 years that the UK has been referred to the ECJ, it has the biggest record of “wins” of any EU nation.
50- The EU currently decide 75% of the laws affecting Britain
The House of Commons Library has warned that “there is no totally accurate, rational or useful way of calculating the percentage of national laws based on or influenced by the EU.” So how did you calculate that figure? In real terms, taking laws which are actually affected by, rather than just referencing, EU laws and directives the figure would be closer to 13%, but like the Government themselves warn, any figure is meaningless.