Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I welcome strongly the Government’s wish to have a new relationship with the EU, which is so appropriate now that it is going to integrate for the euro, so why is this not the time to negotiate different arrangements on how much we contribute and how many spending programmes we are part of, as the framework covers such a long period of time?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark): That is exactly what we are doing in this multi-annual financial framework, and the opportunity we have to veto a settlement that we are not in favour of gives us leverage in that.
November 7, 2012
Will the veto mean anything if used, might delay things for a bit, but then the EU do just has they wish and impose what they assume to be right. Then expect us all to pay up and continue as normal. Who’s confusing who here? The government should put all its energies to pulling us out of this madhouse as soon as possible, with Merkel arriving shortly nows our chance, or will it be a chance wasted? Whatever the do over the channel it costs us more, they just impose what they want and until we remove ourselves there’s nothing we can do about it.