Douglas Carswell's Blog

Our response to the Eurozone crisis has as much credibility as a Greek bond

"It is frankly unbelievable" writes Boris Johnson in today's Telegraph "that we should now be urging our neighbours to go for fiscal union. It is like seeing a driver heading full-tilt for a brick wall, and then telling them to hit the accelerator rather than the brake". 

Indeed.  It is not only unbelievable.  It should make us angry.

We have lurched from one episode of this Euro crisis to another. At every juncture, our Treasury team has been ready to commit more of our money to defending the indefensible. At the outset, the Coalition signed up to the Darling deal to contribute to the temporary bailout mechanism. Two years on, they were happy to ramp up our IMF contributions for the same purpose.   

Despite telling us how keen they all were to keep Britain out of the Euro all those years ago, ministers have been curiously slow to apply the same logic today, and question why Euro membership should be good for Greece, Spain, Italy and the rest. 

So instead they have drifted along with the Whitehall consensus.  From one cliche about the need to save the Euro to the next.  From one pointless summit to another.  From one round of bailout-and-borrow to another.

When Britain crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism - the precursor to the Euro - there was a massive movement in the price of currencies - and a shift in political share prices.  Both may be about to happen again.

Back to all posts