Douglas Carswell's Blog

Bailout Mechanism fiasco

One of the first things the new Coalition government did when it came to office was give a green light to the deal Alistair Darling had done on the European Stabilisation Mechanism.

Although negotiated by Labour ministers just before the election, the agreement was never put to Parliament. Incoming minister could in fact have stopped it - provided they had the verve to do more than follow civil servant advice. Seeing as how the deal puts the UK on the spot for £billions under a Qualified Majority Vote in Brussels, it might have been worth at least challenging. Not a bit of it.

"Best just let it through by pretending it's a done deal", ministers thought. "Let's avoid a Euro row - and concentrate on cutting that deficit!".

The trouble is the small print of the deal they let through exposes us to Euro bailout liabilities that far exceed the amount we've actually shaved off public spending.

Today we're spun a line that the Chancellor has blocked our permanent participation in this bailout mechanism. Gosh.

But another way of looking at this is that he's ensured we face almost open ended liabilities to bailout the Euro until 2013. And we're not even members.

Doesn't quite sound as sceptic, does it?

Do you suppose ministers are as certain that they were right not to block the Darling deal back in May?

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