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		What if the EU had never existed? January 6 2003 January 1st marked the thirtieth anniversary of Britain joining the (then) Common Market, now the EU. To mark the event, I was asked to join a debate on New Year's Eve on BBC Radio 5 Live, on a fascinating question: "What would Britain be like if the EU had never happened?". Many of the so-called "benefits" of the EU would surely have happened anyway, without the centralised institutions and bureaucracy of Brussels. The peace in Europe has been kept, and the USSR faced down, not by the EU, but by NATO and the transatlantic alliance. The idea that the EU has kept the peace is sheer Brussels propaganda. Without the EU, we would surely have negotiated free trade arrangements in Europe - and indeed much of the growth in trade over the last thirty years is down to global tariff reductions under the GATT and the WTO, rather than to free trade within the EU. We would have co-operated across borders on major projects in Europe, as we co-operate on major projects with the USA. Multi-national businesses would have led to a measure of cross-border economic integration. Market forces and economies of scale, rather than Brussels diktats, would have delivered convergence on industrial specifications. In other policy areas, we would still have developed bilateral or multilateral deals with neighbouring countries -- like the excellent deal on immigration and asylum seekers which we had with France until 1997, which worked so much better than the EU's Dublin Convention which replaced it. So not much would change, then? Well yes it would. For a start, we should still have a fishing industry. British waters represent three quarters of what is now an EU "common resource". This major industry was thrown in as a make-weight in the final hours of our accession negotiations in 1972. And as we now know, the Common Fisheries Policy has proved to be an unmitigated disaster. Without the EU, we should be more prosperous. An independent study commissioned by the Institute of Directors says that the total costs of British membership amount to between £15 and £25 billion a year - a colossal sum. We should be free of the vast regulatory costs imposed by Brussels. A recent CBI press release identifies seven of their top ten regulatory gripes as coming straight from Brussels. Without the EU, we should be more free and democratic. I recently saw a Labour government Minister in Brussels pleading for Britain to be let off a particularly damaging piece of EU legislation - the Temporary Workers Directive, which the CBI says will cost 160,000 jobs. He was told he'd have to swallow it. Decisions which profoundly affect our lives are made by unaccountable bureaucrats, and our elected government can do nothing about it. No wonder so few people bother to vote in national elections. Fewer people voted in the 1999 Euro-elections than in the final of the big brother house. The voters know that the best they can do is to make small changes in the shifting balance of coalitions in just one of the EU's several governing institutions. While I hope that you will turn out and vote in the 2004 Euro-elections, it is difficult to argue with those who decide it's not worth bothering. Without the EU, we should arguably be more secure. The EU's defence policy, which exists mainly on paper, is nonetheless threatening the status of NATO, which has ensured our security for decades. The EU's military meddling will leave Britain more exposed in a dangerous world. So am I calling for EU withdrawal? No. But I believe we need a massive renegotiation of the terms of our membership so that the EU looks, at least from our point of view, less like a superstate and more like a free trade area. If we fail to move in that direction, then I believe that the question of our continued membership of the EU will arise, whether we like it or not.