Thank EU

Euro-MP Paul Nuttall

MEP Paul Nuttall has thanked the EU for "ushering Britain towards the exit door of the European Union".

He described David Cameron’s so-called victory in budget negotiations as “hollow” and said it was not a good deal for the UK.

Mr Nuttall, UKIP Deputy Leader, speaking at a Council of Presidents budget debate in Brussels, pointed out that moves “to vote on the budget in secret helped to build mistrust in the EU.”

“It is no coincidence that today an opinion poll in the Financial Times stated quite clearly that 50% of Britons would like to leave the EU altogether.”

Mr Nuttall, North West Euro-MP, told the meeting, which included Jose Barroso, President of the European Commission and Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, that when he first heard news bulletins that there was to be real terms cut in the budget for the first time he wondered if Mr Cameron has secured a historic victory.

“But then I thought hang-on, where is the detail? As we say in the UK, 'Where's the beef?' When we look at it closely we find it's only EU horse meat. Absolutely, more EU horse meat.

“Although there is a cut in real terms of about 36 billion euros, taken over seven years it actually amounts to peanuts. In reality, the British taxpayer will pay even more because our contributions will go up year on year.

“We already pay an obscene £53 million a day into the EU budget and we don't want to put a penny piece into an organisation that hasn't had its accounts signed off for 18 years.

“And to make things even worse, I now hear that the four largest groups in the parliament want to vote on this budget in secret. I ask you what are you afraid of? Is it your own political parliaments back home, or actually, are you more afraid of the people who elected you in the first place.

“To vote secretly on an issue of this importance, an issue that affects your constituents in times of austerity, quite frankly is the stuff of a banana republic, not of a democratic organisation, that you purport to be,” he said.