Dr. Heald in 'EU Queue Doo-Doo'. - Letter to the Crewe & Nantwich Chronicle 19/2/15

Labour PPC Dr Adrian Heald stated in your letters page that the ‘EU’ queue at Passport Control in airports is usually faster - and held this up as a good reason for the UK to stay part of that corrupt and undemocratic organisation. If he paid a little more attention, he’d have noticed that the queue is actually labelled ‘EU, Switzerland and the European Economic Area’ (which includes Iceland and Norway). None of these countries are members of the EU, but trade freely within that block and enjoy unfettered access to Dr. Heald’s queue, as would the UK in the event of leaving the EU.

I suspect that Dr. Heald’s error was due not to poor eyesight, but to a desire to wilfully mislead the public over the implications of the UK leaving the EU. This comes as no surprise – we see this sort thing every day in from the pro-EU lobby, whether it be the orchestrated smear campaign against UKIP on the left-wing BBC and Channel4, or Dr. Heald’s other claim that UK Companies would suffer in the event of a ‘Brexit’.

Such misunderstanding should be expected from someone who has spent not one day of their career working in private industry. The truth is that 95% of UK firms – the small and medium companies which create the bulk of the employment in our country -  do no trade with the EU, but are still forced to comply with all its red tape and regulation at great cost.

For those larger companies that do export; will a Jaguar become less fast, a JCB less capable, or a Rolls-Royce Jet Engine less powerful to overseas buyers because the UK is not in the EU? Of course not. Companies and individuals buy things based on their value, not the political union of their country of manufacture.

Furthermore, free of the EU, the UK would be able to retake its seat at the WTO and establish Free Trade deals with the parts of the world where economies are actually growing, and not in a tailspin of debt and deflation like the beleaguered Eurozone to which we are currently chained. This would providing a boost to UK exporters, as the EU has no Free Trade Deal with the likes of China and India due to disputes over French Wine and German Solar Panels.

The public must not be taken in by the scare tactics and misinformation employed by the pro-EU lobby, but should seek to establish the facts for themselves.

Cllr. Stuart Hutton CEng MIET (UKIP).