Interesting to hear Chuka Umunna getting away with it yesterday on Today as he claimed no one had never mentioned we would have to pay any money to the EU and that Boris had said, pre-referendum and several times since, that the EU could ‘go whistle’ for its money.
Hmmm….except Boris only said that earlier this year in response to a question from a fellow Tory and it was in reference to the ‘extortionate’ sum that the EU was saying it wanted…..£100 billion.
Foreign secretary hits out at ‘extortionate’ demands in event of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union
As for no one mentioning a ‘Brexit divorce bill’….Remain were pretty keen to push that cost….here’s Heseltine…
There are two countries – Norway and Switzerland – who are not members of the European Union but have got trading agreements of the sort that we would have to renegotiate with Europe. And, if you actually look at what they pay for their trading agreements, it’s quite obvious that there would be very little saving, if any, for Britain, because we would have to agree as part of the new negotiations the cost of entry to that market.
But the concentration on figures entirely misses the point…this was a referendum on sovereignty and immigration…the only figures Leave voters were interested in were the immigration ones…speaking of which…remember how we were told Leave lied about the EU’s drive to get Turkey in its embrace? Yesterday we heard this:
European Union Remains ‘Committed’ To Opening Borders to 75 Million Turkish Citizens as ‘Soon as Possible’
The European Union (EU) remains “committed to” giving, and is in the later stages of securing, Turkish citizens visa-free travel in the bloc, as well as handing an extra three billion euros to migrants in the nation by next year, a commissioner has said.
And what of the good lady whom we hear is the next leader of the Labour Party, Emily Thornberry? She appeared on Emma Barnett’s show on 5 Live [12:10] being interviewed about Trump and his Tweets. Can’t say she has changed my mind about her…arrogant, conceited, contemptuous, lying and childish. Barnett challenged her on a couple of points but let her get away with several that needed a bit of a ‘reality check’ She claimed Trump had imposed a ‘Muslim travel ban’ when of course he hadn’t…he merely banned travel from countries Obama had already designated as countries of concern due to terrorism. Then she claimed May had never challenged Trump…and yet may has consistently been prepared to criticise him from when she was Home Secretary…and has done so many times since. She also claimed that ‘Britain’ didn’t want Trump to visit…Barnett did question that claim…Thornberry’s response? To say that the British people needed to educate themselves about him….they are wrong.
Funny old world….here’s a woman who is shadow foreign secretary denouncing the President of the United States for raising the issue of Islamic extremism and yet she works for a man, along with his chancellor and shadow home secretary, who supports terrrorism, not just ‘foreign’ terrorism but home grown terrorism aimed at the British government. And yet Barnett didn’t see fit to ask her about her hypocrisy and double standards.
This is the Thornberry who sneered at people who flew the English flag…and who shows her continuing arrogant contempt for them as she joked about it in PMQs.
It has all become a bit of a self fulfilling remainder prophesy in that is as plain as the nose on your face.
If you appoint a “remain” PM and a largely “remain” cabinet then the game will be played by the EU rules. So of course you will pay a monstrous and unnecessary exit bill, and of course you will not really leave the EU.
The only inconvenient spanner in the works for May was the electing of a pro GB President in the US. Never mind – Theresa is doing her level best to sort that one. So yes Chukka is right we will have to pay a huge bill because the people who represent us have do not want to do the electorates bidding and stand up for this country.
As for Lady Nugee – well what can you say about her. Maybe when she gives away all of the pots of cash she is sitting on and moves to social housing I might listen to her.
We should tell the EU that we will pay the pensions of the British EU gravy-trainers, so we will give them not a penny for that. We also don’t owe them for anything else, but we contributed significantly to some of the EU infrastructure so we should be repayed for that. We have also overpaid our contribution for years, only second behind Germany, so they owe us for that too.
I suggest that we send them a bill for £100 billion. We could be generous and let them off for £50 billion if they promise to behave. They owe us, we do not owe them anything.
And as far as Chucker Upper goes, if nobody on the leave side mentioned how much we would have to pay to get out of prison is that no decent person would have perceived that we had anything to pay.
Demon.
If one of our mep’s served in the European Parliament for 4 years he would have contributed 4 years worth of pension funds. This would surely be the case for all our mep’s. They will have paid into the pension fund and that would be that.
Why are we liable for even a penny towards any pension payments. (Answer, we are not)
If you leave a job after 4 years say at the age of 24, your pension follows you and it’s not your former employer who must still pay you for 40 years worth of pension. Once you leave, the pension there stops.
So, how is it that we must pay about 50 billion with pension commitments being mentioned along with some other vague commitments. We owe NOTHING towards eu pensions, it’s already been paid.
As to the other commitments, if I want to buy a car but I lose my job I have to alter my decisions to suit the new circumstances. The eu is losing a significant sum with us leaving so they must adjust to it and not expect us to carry on paying as May and Co are keen to do.
If you leave your job should your former employer keep on paying you? Of course not.
We voted to leave and not for any of these other cooked up messes that the government and other remainers are trying to pass off as some kind of Brexit.
OUT NOW, WTO RULES, NO PAYMENT. NOW!
Emmanuel,
You have ignored the fact that Public Sector pensions are unfunded.
If I move house to another county, will I still have to pay the 30% (and rising) of my council tax ,at my old address, that goes on their pensions for say 10 years ?
Interestingly, my bank, HSBC , were trying to sell me a pension scheme. I asked them to quote me how much I would have to put in in order to retire after 30 years on 2/3 of my final salary, index linked, oh and with a gratuity on retirement to by a camper van. Guess what 43% of salary, so please don’t tell me Public Sector pensions are fully funded.
Thomas.
Do our mep’s not pay anything towards their pension.
I thought everybody had to pay now.
The NI contributions paid into their state pension fund and, as with other employment, a payment to a private pension.
Don’t the police, doctors and firefighters pay into a pension?
Surely the mep’s also pay into a pension.
Even if they pay nothing towards a pension(unlikely) the liability will be nowhere near the amounts the eu are wanting.
If we took over full liability for our mep’s pensions what would that amount come to? a couple of billion maybe?
Emmanuel,
I am sure they do pay something, it’s just as a private sector business man I am fed up paying through my taxes to support unfunded public sector pensions. I am taxed at every turn when paying in and taking out of my fund.(Ok, I admit I can get a camper van with my tax free lump sum )
Why doesn’t our government just honour the pension entitlements of our Eurocrats and MEP’s as they arise rather than paying a lump sum to the EU up front ?
What a repulsive woman.
This question has been asked here before (apologies to whoever it was as I’ve forgotten): if one of the EU countries receiving money from Brussels voted to leave the EU would their subsidy stop from the date of exit or would the EU insist on continuing the payments for the following decade? The EU would stop payments because they were no longer a member, and so were not entitled to anything: the same principle should apply to us.
When membership of an organisation ends the obligations and benefits of membership end at that point.
There is an argument that British employees of the EU should transfer to the UK government. They then work here for us and are paid by us, with any pension liabilities coming to us – along with the value of any pension fund they have built up while working in Brussels.
The only reason for making any concessions to the EU is the level of division in UK politics. The Quislings have a lot of power and are using it to benefit their masters in the EU. Brexiteers need to choose their battlegrounds with care and might need to create room for ducking and weaving: with the added benefit that when the EU rejects the concessions as inadequate any blame will be theirs.
Chamberlain made a lot of concessions to Hitler at Munich. They weren’t enough to avoid war but they did ensure that the British population was convinced of the need to fight.