No argument for withdrawal
Few arguments could be more absurd than that contained in Mr Whitelaw's recent statement to the effect that withdrawal from the EEC would create unemployment in Britain, and damage our hopes for maintaining, if not increasing by very much, our present standard of living. He was able to quote no more than the vaguest gossip from some industrialists to that effect: but not a statistic nor a serious proposition was to be seen in his speech. The factors making for unemployment in Britain today are inflation and excessive trade union militancy, and there is no sign that membership of the EEC at the moment either materially improves or materially disimproves our prospects for the future. Such indications as there are suggest that the continuing centralisation of investment and plant in the EEC, and the constantly rising prices which membership brings about, will create rather than relieve unemployment. And it was no British anti-Marketeer, but Dr Sicco Mansholt who said, "The disparities in standards of living between different areas uf the Community have become more marked rather than less, and for the great mass of the population there has been no 13road improvement in conditions general
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