Eu

The House of Commons is in a febrile, nervy mood this afternoon. No-one is quite happy with anyone else. David Cameron raised a cheer when he told MPs that he will not pay the €2bn bill apparently sprung on him by the European Commission, but he had very little to say when pressed by Labour on how this surprise was quite so surprising given Treasury ministers were mentioning it in letters months ago. Ken Clarke made backbenchers glower and opposition MPs howl with glee when he told the Chamber he sympathised with the Prime Minister for being surprised by something everyone in the Foreign Office and Treasury had known about

If the European Commission had come to Britain demanding another £90 million because this country’s economy had performed better than expected, it would have been a political headache for David Cameron. The money would have been handed over and Ukip would have slapped it on to its election leaflets. But the Commission’s demand for £1.7 billion extra from Britain is so outrageous that it provides Cameron with a political opportunity. He can refuse to pay and hold up all other European business until the demand is dropped, rallying the country to his side as Margaret Thatcher did over the British rebate. One Cabinet Minister says excitedly of the row with

A visibly riled David Cameron railed at the European Commission’s ‘completely unacceptable’ behaviour in demanding another £1.7 billion from Britain by the 1st of December. He warned that he certainly won’t be paying this bill then, and that anyone who thinks he will ‘have another think coming’. Here’s the audio: listen to ‘Cameron: EU demand ‘completely unjustified’ and ‘unacceptable’’ on audioBoom

This chart, courtesy of Mike Smithson, shows Ipsos-Mori’s polling on British membership of the European Union. It shows support for leaving the EU is no higher now than it was 20 years ago. I’ll wager this surprises you. As you can see, there has always been a constituency for leaving the EU. Public enthusiasm for the european project has always been conditional. Despite that, the unhappiness of a known known has generally proved more attractive than the uncertainty of a known unknown. (This, ahem, is also true of certain other constitutional questions with which we have wrestled recently.) But how can this be? How can UKIP be soaring in the

Imagine if David Cameron actually meant it. Imagine if he really did follow through with his implied threat to campaign for Brexit in the absence of better terms from Brussels. You can picture the televised address. An oak-panelled background with a large union flag hanging sedately in the corner, the PM with that furrowed house-captain expression he sometimes does. The script pretty much writes itself. ‘All of you know how hard I tried to secure a new deal. I was often criticised for being too conciliatory, but it was my duty to do whatever was in my power to reform the EU. I have to tell you today that the

What a godsend to Ukip José Manuel Barroso must be.  On his recent short visit to the UK he not only managed to tell the British public that limits to immigration (desired by the overwhelming majority of the British public) would be ‘illegal’.  He also managed to tell us that if we left the EU, Britain would have ‘zero’ influence in the world. I do wonder who bureaucrats like Mr Barroso think they are going to persuade.  Are they simply relying on swaying or scaring us on the presumption that we have no historical knowledge or memory?  Because this latest message can’t possibly work, can it?  Most British people don’t

Everyone’s favourite unelected European was doing the broadcasting rounds this morning, popping up on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show to tell David Cameron that he can forget any plans to cap the number of EU immigrants in Britain. Here’s what José Manuel Barroso had to say:- “Any kind of arbitrary cap seems to be not in conformity with Europeans laws. For us it is very important – the principle of non-discrimination. The freedom of movement is a very important principle in the internal market: movement of goods, of capital, of services and of people. By the way, I remember when prime minister Cameron called me to ask the commission to be tough ensuring the

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Lord Pearson and Damian Green discuss Ukip and the Tories” startat=81] Listen [/audioplayer]I think I’ve cracked it. If you want to springboard your minor political party into the mainstream and take British politics by storm, then all you need to do is go on and on about helping the poor. You don’t need to do much else. You certainly don’t need to modify your policies so that they actually help the poor. This would be overkill. Nor, frankly, do you even need to be 100 per cent up to speed on who the poor are. Feel free to conflate them with the elderly or the skilled working class

The Tories will announce a big new policy on freedom of movement in the European Union, David Cameron told his MPs tonight. At a meeting of the Parliamentary party, the Tory leader promised what one Eurosceptic attendee described as a ‘big bang’ announcement on freedom of movement. Apparently this pleased those there no end, even those usually critical of the Prime Minister. MPs were also told they are expected to visit Rochester to campaign at least three times, and the cabinet five times, which is clearly an intervention from Lynton Crosby as the whips had decided at the end of last week that they wouldn’t bother. This was what one

Boris is at it again this morning. Revealing, that is, why he cannot be trusted with office. To be charitable, I wouldn’t trust many newspaper columnists with the keys to power.  But, of course, most Grub Street residents have no interest in being crowned Emperor. Boris does. Which is why his columns for the Daily Telegraph are so troublesome. You will remember the recent occasion when he suggested the burden of proof in criminal trials be reversed. That was revealing, but in a bad way. So is today’s column in which he proposes setting quotas for immigrants from other EU countries. As is so often the case you are left to wonder