A letter to the Editor of the Financial Times which was published on 7th September 1996.

The assertion by Mr Tony Hales and fourteen other company executives (Letters, 5 Sept.) that Britain’s likely refusal to abolish the pound sterling is based on a “serious misunderstanding of the process of monetary union” is clearly based on their own misunderstanding of the Maastricht Treaty.

It is not true, as they say, that “many aspects of monetary union remain to be resolved”.  If they would take the trouble to read what they pronounce on so confidently they would find that all the important provisions of monetary union are set out in black and white in Articles 2 and 102-109 and in 12 protocols of the Treaty.

Protocol 3 alone runs to nine chapters and 53 articles.  In protocol 3 the operation and constitution of the European Central Bank, the handover of our gold and dollar reserves, which belong to the British people (Art 30), the capital subscription (£700M in our case) (Art 28), the transition arrangements including exchange and issue of bank notes (Arts 16, 52 and 53), membership of the Bank’s Executive Board (Art 50), its governing council (Art 11), the Bank’s responsibilities (Art 12) and so on are all completely laid down.

Only the name of the currency and the location of the Central Bank were left open and these have now been decided.

In November 1991 a similar group of CBI executives wrote to the Times saying how important it was for Britain to stay in the ERM.  A year later, after White Wednesday, they were writing to say how important it was to keep open an option to re-enter the ERM.

Four years on, after 800,000 lost jobs and £30Bn of lost output, from which we are only now slowly recovering, they are at it again.

A letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph which was published on 10th June 1996.

In his attempt to prove the impossible, namely that Britain benefits from membership of the European Union, the CBI deputy President, Sir Bryan Nicholson (Saturday), calls in aid the canard that “surveys of business opinion have consistently shown overwhelming majorities in favour”.

Actually the Federation of Small Businesses which has over 90,000 members, many more than the CBI, has voted to leave the EU.  The CBI’s poll on the currency issue, on which it bases its views about business opinion, obtained only 212 responses, less than 3% of its membership.  Of this number only 28%, i.e. 59 responses, favoured abolishing our currency.

However much its chairmen may approve of “Europe” in their off-duty lunches at the CBI, British business is investing globally.  In 1995 ICI, for instance, authorized capital expenditure of over £550 Million in Asia Pacific, three times its commitment to Continental Europe.  Membership of the EU entails costs which are certain and massive while the gains, if any, are marginal and uncertain.  No rational individual or properly managed business would arrange their affairs on such a basis.

In fact the advantages of EU membership are as illusory as the King’s new suit in the Hans Andersen fairy tale.  But for the British people, leaving the EU will bring real gains including: an end to payments to the EU of around £8 billion gross, £3.5 billion net (equivalent to 2 pence on income tax); recovery of control of 60-70% of North Sea fishing grounds; an end to agricultural quotas which reserve portions of the British market for Continental producers; recovery of our right to negotiate world-wide trading agreements; removal of the power of the EU to impose a world-wide ban on British products, or to order the British Government to pay huge sums to pregnant service women, and to remove constraints on suspected IRA terrorists, in the name of the “Single Market”.

The “Single Market” so often invoked by Europhiles as a means of assuring common standards is simply a cloak for federalist ambitions.  As a market there is nothing special about it.  The international standards system (ISO) written in English is the preferred standard for the world outside the EU with its own quaint CEN system written in French.  Japan sells its products into the EU without paying the EU £3.5 billion for the privilege. Lucas won its recent contract to supply Volkswagen with diesel injectors because it had the best product in the world, not because it was in the EU.

And that’s the real point: it’s Britain’s ability to produce world-class products which will determine its future and secure the employment of its people.  Membership of the EU simply gets in the way.

A letter to the Editor of the Times which was published on 4th November 1992.

I wonder how many of the 27 luminaries of the CBI who write today advocating ratification of the Treaty on European Union have actually read it.  One would hope that they have brought to bear on the treaty the same exacting scrutiny which they bring to bear on their companies’ commercial agreements.

Your correspondents say that while “early re-entry to the ERM is not likely to be feasible . . . we should not close off the option to re-enter”.  Do they not realise that the central purpose of the treaty (Article G, Title VI) is monetary union, that membership of the ERM is the first stage and that the second stage to which the treaty legally commits this country begins on January 1, 1994, less than 14 months away. Despite Britain’s theoretical option to defer a decision on full monetary union in Stage 3, under Stage 2 we will be bound to adopt convergent monetary (largely deflationary) policies which run flat counter to the new policy of economic growth.

Again, contrary to their letter, the Maastricht treaty articles do not add appreciably to the framework of the single market: these are provided for in the Single European Act (1986). Where the treaty does have an additional effect on the market is in its provision (Articles 130a-d) for the setting up (before December 31, 1993) of a new cohesion fund whose central purpose is to transfer large sums of money (so-called structural funds) from the rich north to the poor south of the Community.

In other words, countries like Britain will pay subsidies to other countries like Portugal and Greece in order that they will be able to compete better with us. On current EC plans these transfers double Britain’s present EC contribution of almost £3 billion.

Is this what the CBI wants?

A letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph which was published on 28th June 1988.

Your strictures (editorial, June 25th) on the recent payments to Sir George Jefferson and other displaced chairmen are well merited, but I doubt that the financial institutions will provide an effective restraining factor.

Besides excessive payments for loss of office, the salaries of the directors of major corporations have leapt up at many times the rate of real profitable growth in their businesses.  This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “unearned income”.  Indeed, British corporate managers in some sectors are fast gaining a reputation not so much for creating capital as for conferring it on one another.

To restore a reputation for the responsibility in pay matters which it is so often commending to its workforces, the CBI should produce a code of practice on directors’ pay and compensation.  By citing this in an action against a board acting irresponsibly in pay matters, private shareholders would recover some of the power they have lost to the institutions.