EU Central has utterly failed to communicate or explain any of the benefits of membership to the UK's population

Not quite.

Of course, you'll have to "order" a copy.

Unfortunately, the European Commissions's web staff forgot to put a link in the HTML to do that.

But being one of those really dogged and web-savvy, EU-curious British types, you will Google the title from that page -- 'No-nonsense guide for UK citizens' -- click on the top result that comes up -- AEDE :: No-nonsense guide for UK citizens -- recognize the same document blurb and author's image as on that European Commission page, and be delighted that here there is a link.

Which you eagerly click on.

Only to discover that your are back at the first EC page without the link.

But you are undeterred.  Because you really curious and care about what benefits membership in the EU can bring to you.

So you try the second Google result, which looks promising, because it has 'europe' in the domain name.  Your excitement mounts when you see that this page, another copy of the EC page, is titled 'Europe in the UK'.  Now we're talking.  There is a link there, which you click hopefully.

This takes you to something different: an order form titled 'Publications', with lots of charming text boxes.

Your heart sinks.  But with a last sliver of hope of finding something useful, you scroll down and see a list of publications that you can order.  You accidentally roll over one of them, and lo and behold, see that they are links.  What's more, they are links to PDF's.  This is too good to be true.  If you click on 'The EU - What's in it for me? A no-nonsense guide for UK citizens to what the European Union delivers', surely you will be charged for it.  But no, it's starts downloading a 1.9 MB file which a few seconds later you can open up in your reader.

And here is an enumeration of what those EU benefits to British people are:

1. Moving Around Europe Freely and Safely
   
   • Living and Working Abroad
   • Studying Abroad
   • Air Safety - Blacklist of Airlines
   • Transparent Flight-Ticket Pricing
   • Charter of Air Passenger Rights
   • Moving Around without Passport Checks


2. Giving Consumers a Fair Deal At Home and Away
   
   • The Single Market's Contribution to Economic Growth
   • Shopping Abroad
   • Phoning While Abroad: Roaming and the GSM Standard
   • Liberalization of Telecoms
   • Preventing Market Stitch-Ups: The Car Market
   • Monitoring Consumer Markets
   • MP3 Downloads


3. Making Our Food and Environment Safer
   
   • Climate Change and Sustainable Energy
   • Bathing Water
   • Waste
   • Hazardous Chemicals
   • Life
   • Animal Health
   • Food Labelling
   • GMOs
   • Watchdogs - the European Food Safety Authority, and the Food and Veterinary Office
   • Protecting Consumer Safety: RAPEX


4. Fighting Crime and Policing Borders
   • The European Arrest Warrant
   • Fight Against Money Laundering
   • Counterfeiting and Piracy
   • External Borders Agency


5. Some Things the EU Doesn't Do
   • 'The EU has got rid of lbs and ozs and will soon force us to use km on the road'
   • 'The Lisbon Treaty would force the UK to give up its seat on the UN Security Council'
   • 'The EU is doing away with 999 as our emergency number'
   • 'The EU is trying to wipe England off the map'
   • 'The EU wants to stop pub-goers calling bar staff `love''
   • 'The EU wants to drop the Queen from our passports'

Which begs the question: Is all this worth giving up British integrity, dignity and self-respect and putting up with a combination of third rate athletes in bobbing latex birds and irrational legislation about bananas?

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.