Douglas Carswell's Blog

Eurosceptics secret weapon

Campaigners against Britain’s continued membership of the EU discovered a secret weapon yesterday in the form of European Commission spokesman, Patrizio Fiorilli.

Appearing on Newsnight, each of his smirks must have been worth many more recruits.

Hard pressed British households struggling with austerity at home would recognise what he said when he declared “we have bills to pay”. However, I’m less sure that they’ll understand why Patrizio’s bills have to take priority over their's.

Insisting that the poor old EU Commission wasn’t trying to impose anything, merely fulfilling its legal obligations, he told us the EU’s accounts were “spotless”. Pressed on why the Court of Auditors had failed to sign off on them for sixteen years, he insisted that that was a problem with “the payments”.

“We are not ready to go for illegal actions” the EU commission spokesman gravely told us. Unless it involves the use of Article 122 of the treaty to bounce UK households into bailing out the Eurozone, he did not add. 

Perhaps his most bizarre claim was that the commission needed this extra cash to meet its obligations to “local and regional authorities”. My local council would love to have a 4.9 percent budget increase.  After listening to Patrizio, more voters will realise that if we were to simply stop making the £19 Billion gross annual contribution to Brussels, our town halls would be awash with money.

More interviews with Patrizio Fiorilli, please.  

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