Douglas Carswell's Blog

But how do we stop further Eurozone bailouts?

It's encouraging to see so many of the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs recognising the hopelessness of "throwing good money after bad" in the Eurozone bailouts with a letter to the Financial Times today.  Many of them also voted to stop the bailouts in the division lobby. 

They are surely right.  Bravo. 

But what to do about it? 

To prevent ever greater liabilities for UK taxpayers, Britain needs to be prepared to legally challenge attempts to make us contribute anything more under the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM) - to which we remain tied until 2013.  Looking ahead, this is about far more than just Greece ....  

As today’s letter reminds us, it was of course while Alistair Darling was Chancellor, on May 9th last year, that Britain signed up to being part of the bailout mechanism.  The trouble is that the incoming government did nothing about it when they came to office a few days later – perhaps unable or unwilling to see the implications ahead.

Indeed, at the Ecofin meeting on May 18th, the incoming Chancellor does not appear to have raised any objections – while at the same time approving the various pan-EU fiscal scrutiny arrangements that the bailout deal begot.  Other Treasury ministers have actually gone further, stating that the UK’s participation in the EFSM is “appropriate” and “sensible”.

If we are to be in any position to do now what the government should have done last May, and prepare a legal challenge, ministers now need to look properly at the advice they were given about the Darling deal on coming to office (which, incidentally, is precisely why I’ve been pursuing this point over the past year).

While there was a change of ministers last May, it now seems pretty clear that there has, as of yet, been remarkably little change in official policy direction.  Indeed, one of the chief architects behind the Darling bailout deal, Jon Cunliffe, is set to be promoted as UK ambassador to the EU. 

That makes it all the better to see Members of Parliament demanding a radical overhaul of our approach to Europe – and, let it be whispered softly, perhaps even some kind of meaningful democratic oversight over Britain’s EU deal making.

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