EXCLUSIVE: UK didn't vote against EU budget increase next year. Why not?

Every working day Remainer MPs delay, the EU will spend another £570 million pounds

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org

That’s £2.8 BILLION PER WEEK. Are you happy with that?

Brexit Facts4EU.Org looks at the EU’s budget for 2020

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

EU Commission draft budget for next year (2020)

  • Total EU draft budget for 2020 : €168.3 billion euros (approx £145 billion pounds)
  • Payments proposed to rise by 3.45% - almost three times the current inflation rate in the EU
  • EU still plans to spend over half-a-billion pounds per working day next year

Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Treaty means we keep paying the EU next year
And yet the UK Government abstained on this vote

Last week the EU Council gave its latest decision on the EU budget for next year, 2020. It based its decision on the meeting of the EU General Council on 15 October.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org has obtained a copy of the voting records for that meeting, which clearly show that the British Government abstained. This is despite the fact that its official policy is to remain as a paying member until at least the end of 2020, and more probably until the end of 2022 or beyond.

© EU General Affairs Council

What’s this all about?

Each year there is a conflict between the EU Commission, the EU Council, and the EU Parliament, over the size and composition of the EU budget for the following year. Each year each body proposes a different budget, and after months of wrangling a fudged agreement is arrived at.

The draft budget from the EU Commission for next year is €168,271,705,979. That’s approximately £145 billion pounds, at current exchange rates. Under EU rules this must be in keeping with its seven-year ‘multi-annual financial framework’, or MFF.

Observations

Of course the EU27 will ‘graciously’ grant the UK an extension for three months.

If the UK leaves on Thursday without an agreement, the EU will be insolvent. We have studied all the EU’s expenditure plans since well before the Referendum – and continuously after it. Never at any time has the EU seriously considered cutting back its expenditure, on the basis that 13% of its population was leaving.

The United Kingdom is the second-largest net funder of the EU and its profligacy. Yet the EU has never once taken any steps to reduce its planned expenditure to account for the departure of one its biggest bankers.

In any boardroom in the UK, this would amount to gross incompetence, and the Finance Director and Chief Exec would probably both have to go. The principle of prudent financial accounting requires making provisions for future events. The EU has not done so.

The conclusion is obvious: the EU knew it could drag out Brexit for years, and possibly overturn it. This has always been about politics, not logic and reason, as we stated from the word go.

A final question to Boris Johnson

Prime Minister, why did the UK abstain from the vote on the EU budget for next year?

If the UK is to leave the EU on Thursday, then we understand. However your policy was to renegotiate with the EU and you now have a Withdrawal Agreement that you have proposed to Parliament. This will effectively keep us paying into the EU budget for years to come – without even having any voting or veto rights.

Why didn’t the UK Government vote against the increase in the EU budget for next year, bearing in mind that UK taxpayers will pay a large chunk of it?

TO ALL READERS: We live in interesting times. We can only appeal once again to our tens of thousands of readers who have not yet donated, to kindly do so today.

The above article results from original research of official facts, as ever. You will not have seen this on the BBC, Sky News, or in the press. We would love to have the resource to get this out there, along with all the other factual information and reports that we produce all the time.

[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Council | EU Parliament ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 28 Oct 2019

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