The European Union vs French Colonial Taxes

There has been a lot of talk recently about how UK citizens pay more to The European Union than they receive back from the EU in terms of funding. In many ways that shouldn’t be a surprise, because any system of government that you pay money into has to extract more than it pays out, otherwise it will bankrupt itself.

It’s interesting that the United Kingdom spends is around 2.33% of it’s GDP on membership of the European Union, according to the Office of National Statistics (£18.9bn of £814.6bn in 2016 –  apparently this represents around 1% of UK GDP.) It’s a large sum of money, that although relatively small in comparison with our large economy has sparked deep feelings of animosity, coupled with a resentment of European Institutions and the laws they set which impact the lives of UK citizens. Some people in the UK feel this situation around Brexit could lead to violence on the streets of the UK.

What is a surprise, however, is that 14 African Francophone countries (formerly French colonies) pay France, a single country – not a union representing 27 countries, $500bn per year. On average that works out at £27.29bn for each of the 14 countries involved who have far less strong economies than the UK, and are considered for less “developed” than the UK also.

One wonders why when people fear violence on the streets of a “first world” economy over Brexit, why it isn’t more obvious that discord exists in many African countries because of the ties to leech-like foreign regimes that bleed their countries dry and leave the people to fight over the scraps of what is left! What would happen in the UK if we ever had such a situation thrust upon us?

Thanks to my work colleague Abeyomi who shared this video with me, that was a revelation, and made me decide to write about the plight of some African countries in terms that people from the UK might understand:

Further Reading:
African Heritage: The 11 Components of The French Colonial Tax in Africa
South African History Online: The Berlin Conference 1884-1885

Posted in Economics, Race.

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