Since records began in 1996, the UK has not managed to prevent a single proposal placed in front of the Council of Ministers from becoming European law. This amounts to 55 measures that the UK opposed that have since become British law. Since 1973 the UK’s voting power in the Council of Ministers has decreased from 17% to 8%, in the European Parliament it has decreased from 20% to 9.5% and in the European Commission it has decreased from 15% to 4%. The UK has about 12% of the EU's population, it provides only 5% of the EU's staff and the situation is set to get worse. More than four in 10 British officials will be enjoying their retirement by 2020 and, based on the number of applicants in recent years, most of them will not be replaced (junior roles have only a 1.2% UK entrance rate). Over the last European Parliamentary term (2009-14),a majority of British MEPs(across UK party lines) opposed 576 motions out of a total 1,936 that were put before the European Parliament .Of those 576 motions, 485 were nonetheless approved by the rest of the Parliament despite the opposition of a majority of British MEPs. This is a failure rate of 84%. This rises to 89% in Economic & Monetary affairs & 98% loss in Budget votes. We are the 2nd worst represented in the EU parliament after France with 839,194 inhabitants per MEP (Lux 76,667 per MEP, Ireland 350,750, Italy 816,000). There is no "British Influence".
