The true cost of Blair's EU surrender

This is an article you must read. What have the Iraqis and Afghans ever done to us? We should be planting France. Blair is a poohouse. His EU surrender makes my blood boil.

George Osborne has called on Gordon Brown to explain how he plans to finance Tony Blair's surrender over Britain's EU budget rebate - which is set to cost taxpayers almost double what the Prime Minister first claimed.

The Conservative Shadow Chancellor raised the question after Treasury sources revealed that the cost of the UK's contribution to the EU budget will rise to nearly £2 billion a year, as a result of the deal negotiated by the Prime Minister in Brussels last weekend.

The old rivalry between the Blair and Brown camps appeared to intensify when the Chancellor's aides indicated that by 2010-2011, the agreement signed by the Premier would be costing taxpayers £1.9 billion annually. That is the minimum amount of money the UK will be expected to deduct from its annual EU rebate when a new budget is negotiated for the period after 2013.

Protested Mr Osborne: "Now the true cost to taxpayers of the Prime Minister's surrender of the rebate has become clear. The cost is rising to almost two billion pounds per year - more than three times the annual increase in Britain's International Development budget. At a time when Gordon Brown is already struggling to balance the books, the Prime Minister has just landed another huge bill on his desk."

He went on: "We are pointing out the true cost of what Tony Blair has signed away. We are going to find that at the end of this Parliament, the British taxpayer is £2 billion worse off. Although the total cost over the period is £7 billion, when we come to negotiate the next budget, we will be starting at this new higher figure. The next Prime Minister will find that we are handing over £2 billion a year extra. This should be put in the context of Gordon Brown's spending plans. He has to find the money."

Insisting that the Prime Minister should not have surrendered any part of the rebate without securing reform of the EU's costly farm subsidy system, Mr Osborne said the something-for-nothing deal would not have been supported by the Chancellor. "It's an open secret that Gordon Brown will not support the deal. In fact he is briefing against it. It's a bad deal for Britain and Blair should have said that he'd rather have no deal than a bad deal."

Mr Osborne said the Chancellor had been left with the problem of how to pay for the Prime Minister's big mistake. "He can increase borrowing, which is already pretty high, or he can increase taxes, or decrease spending on things like schools and hospitals. We have yet to hear from the Treasury where this money will come from," he said

-- Every single SU and FCUM member is now an enemy of Manchester United, and the Conservative Party. Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy.