Osborne has NOT halved the EU’s £1.7bn bill

This is how George Osborne probably looked after the fire in his pants caused by his incessant lying about the EU's £1.7bn bill burned away the rest of his suit. Note that his briefcase is still empty of policies and all he has to offer us is the carrot of false promises.

This is how George Osborne probably looked after the fire in his pants caused by his incessant lying about the EU’s £1.7bn bill burned away the rest of his suit. Note that his briefcase is still empty of policies and all he has to offer us is the carrot of false promises [Image: Kaya Mar www.kayamarart.com].

Another Tory lie busted – and in a matter of hours.

George Osborne turned up on TV today, buoyed up by a cloud of his own smugness, announcing that thanks to his amazing Chancellorial skills, the UK will have to pay only half of the £1.7bn budget surcharge demanded by the European Union.

What he didn’t say – at least, not in as many words – was that this was because the EU would be applying a previously-agreed rebate to the charge. It isn’t that the UK will be paying less; simply that the EU won’t be giving back the money that we were due.

It’s as Jacek Dominik, EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget, said on October 27: “Let me point out in this respect that the UK will benefit from the UK rebate for the additional payments in 2014. This will be budgeted in May 2015 when the UK rebate is recalculated.”

Bloomberg News carried a more accurate account than Osborne offered the BBC, stating that “EU finance ministers agreed in principle today to stretch out Britain’s payment of a 2.1 billion-euro ($2.6 billion) bill until September 2015, while leaving the U.K.’s overall contributions to the EU untouched.”

This story made it clear that “Britain failed to win a cut in an extra budget payment demanded by the European Union, complicating Prime Minister David Cameron’s efforts to fend off an anti-EU movement at home.

“The U.K. will pay the whole amount without any penalties attached or interest rates,” Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan told reporters after the Brussels meeting. “The installments will be paid over a period of time.”

Now let’s go to Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. Does he think Osborne did a good job? “David Cameron and George Osborne are trying to take the British people for fools.”

Apparently not. “Ministers have failed to get a better deal for the British taxpayer. Not a single penny has been saved for the taxpayer compared to two weeks ago when David Cameron was blustering in Brussels.

“By counting the rebate Britain was due anyway they are desperately trying to claim that the backdated bill for £1.7 billion has somehow been halved. But nobody will fall for this smoke and mirrors. The rebate was never in doubt and in fact was confirmed by the EU Budget Commissioner last month.

“The fact is the Treasury knew about this issue for weeks and weeks, but the Chancellor was asleep on the job. And David Cameron and George Osborne have totally failed to make the alliances we need in Europe to get a better deal for the British taxpayer.”

So the UK is still paying full whack – albeit amortised over a period of time – and George Osborne is a miserable liar.

Vox Political is delighted to have that cleared up.

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5 thoughts on “Osborne has NOT halved the EU’s £1.7bn bill

  1. thelovelywibblywobblyoldlady

    …and of course, it is now due to be paid in September 2015; AFTER the general election, when (hopefully) Labour will get in and they can then spend the next 4 years telling everybody of the mess the tories left just like the tories have been saying about Labour since 2010!

  2. anonymous

    If you were to take Gideon at face value and accept that he had halved the EU Bill then that would be worrying. Very Worrying Indeed. Because the formula for calculating the rebate depends on GDP. It was created by Thatcher in 1984 and refined by Major and the only reason for the rebate to go down would be if the economy is about to tank. So what does Gideon think is going to happen in the next twelve months?

  3. Jim Drummond

    Its worse than smoke and mirrors – its lies lies and more lies – Goebbels wouldn’t have done any better – the most corrupted of governments since Guy Fawkes – it certainly creates the same feeling as he and his mates must have felt. Lets face it qualifications to be a politician untruths, lies, twisted facts, propaganda, self interest. The working class can kiss my ass I have the politicians job at last.

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