Friday 10 December 2010

Economic benefits of EU membership - Not! (2)

At the risk of further upsetting one of my commenters, Xen347, some further instances of the madness in which we now live.

The Taxpayers Alliance (TPA) have produced a report showing the cost that being subject to rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has cost our nation:
  • The UK has to date lost three quarters (331 out of 418) of the rulings that have progressed to the top Strasbourg court, a trend that has increased despite the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998.
  • 80 per cent of all judgments (246 out of 331) Britain has ever lost under the ECHR have been reached since we signed the HRA.
  • About one third of all judgments ever made involving the UK were actually referred to Strasbourg after the HRA entered into law, rather than concluded by British courts.
  • The cost of complying with judgements under the ECHR is £2.1 billion a year, with an additional £1.8 billion in one off costs. The total cost to date is £17.3 billion.
  • The growth of a “compensation culture” fostered by the Court costs a further £7.1 billion a year, £25 billion to date 
Hell, we might even have been able to afford more than one plane on each aircraft carrier!

4 comments:

Sue said...

your analyses are brilliant WfW. Just what we need to get this sham "club" into perspective.

Witterings from Witney said...

Sue: you are most kind, ma'am!

Anonymous said...

Shocking figures, yet somehow this is not really a surprise,

Witterings from Witney said...

tmwmc: Par for the course, methinks!