British taxpayers have been signed up to paying £18million into an EU propaganda programme by MEPs from across the Continent, with only a tiny percentage earmarked for Eurocrat-approved programmes here in the UK.

The ‘Europe for Citizens’ programme is designed to rewrite Europe’s history to counter the rising scepticism across Europe which saw last year’s May elections return scores of MEPs who want full withdrawal or a big return of powers to their own national governments.

Top of the agenda is a ‘peace project’ called ‘European Remembrance’ which is designed to ‘contribute to citizens’ understanding of the EU, its history and diversity as well as ‘raise awareness of remembrance, the common history and values of the EU and the EU’s aim.’

The EU has often tried to claim that it is the reason for peace in Europe is because of the political bloc which has continued to spread Eastwards after initially drawing France and Germany into a coal and steel union to unite key resources needed for warfare. At times it has even had the audacity to say that the First and Second World Wars were ‘European Civil Wars’.

In the previous parliamentary term, national governments signed up to an EU External Action Service which is designed to usurp the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as British Embassies abroad.

And there already exists a military organisation who wear the gold ring of stars on sleeves of their uniforms and at the beginning of each Parliamentary year march around the front of the main Strasbourg building for a flag raising ceremony.

UKIP Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall said the “anger” at the project and its costs was “totally justified”.

“This ‘Europe for Citizens’ programme which will gobble up our £18m over the next six years gave us just £300,000 last year and meanwhile sent generous grants to pro-European groups in other member states.

“It is another colossal propaganda scheme dreamt up by Eurocrats desperate to keep this doomed EU project afloat and willing to stoop to brainwashing and bribery,” he said,

The project also aims to increase civil participation by voters at EU level, although they are only allowed to vote for MEPs who make up a tiny part of the law making process in Brussels, effectively just rubber stamping diktats from the unelected European Commission. The majority of meetings are made behind closed doors or amongst bureaucrats huddled in corridors and minutes of what was discussed and agreed on is rarely available for people to see how their money is being spent and who signed them up to it.

The only real chance aside from European Elections that the people get to have a say is occasionally in a referendum, which have become a joke since any population not answering ‘correctly’ for the further transfer of powers to Brussels via a new Treaty is always made to answer the question again. Unsurprisingly, countries who agree to these new laws first time are never asked if they are sure of their answer.

The final aim in this scheme is to ‘Foster European Citizenship’: a direct attack on the diversity and traditions of different European nations which the project and the EU have always say they respect yet are always seeking to remove through harmonisation and hundreds of thousands of pages of tightly worded legislation.

At the heart of the European’s concern over declining support for their project and the very real risk of countries – mostly the UK – leaving the Union altogether is the awareness that despite endless propaganda projects and scare stories, people feel first and foremost aligned and proud of the country they hail from. The concept of a ‘European identity’ outside a loose collective of shared history and enjoyment of travel and new cultures is unwelcome by the majority of the people.

“It is a waste of hard working taxpayers money but then so is the £55m we hand over every single day to them and again get just a fraction back. Just think what we could do with such money if it stayed on this side of the Channel” Mr Nuttall added.

“It could be used to pay for more nurses, doctors, teachers and emergency service personnel, roles which have all been dramatically cut back in these times of austerity.

“That would be a wise and meaningful way of spending our cash rather than meekly handing it over to be lost forever down the EU plughole.”