Douglas Carswell's Blog

How long until we roll over?

The European Commission is demanding a massive increase in the amount of money we pay to Brussels. Worse, they want to introduce direct EU taxation so the Euro system can raise revenue from us directly.

When we signed up to the Common Market, believing it to be a prosperous trade block, did we ever imagine we'd end up being asked to contribute billions in this way to fund an army of bureaucrats and their grandiose follies?

I suspect - no matter how much ministers say they'll fight our corner - we'll end up paying more and having some form of EU taxation.

What makes me say that?

Firstly because it's what always happens - once public attention is elsewhere, they'll cut a deal.

Secondly, in order to resist these kind of demands, we'd need to have a tough negotiator speaking on our behalf.

Yet ministers have just promoted to the role of chief deal-maker the senior mandarin - Jon Cunliffe - who not only who agreed to the last round of concessions on the rebate, but then went on to put together the deal that made us liable for the Eurozone bailouts. Fill you with confidence? Me neither.

Unless Downing Street is ultimately prepared to call an In / Out referendum, the demands from Brussels will keep coming - and the concessions from Whitehall will keep going.

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