A British MEP who leads the European parliament’s most powerful committee on economics and financial regulation is facing the threat of being ousted in a post-summit backlash against Britain.
The moves against Sharon Bowles, the Liberal Democrat who chairs the Economic and Monetary Affairs committee, threaten to make her one of the first casualties of UK prime minister David Cameron’s decision to wield the UK veto ... Although no formal request to change the committee chair has yet been tabled, some MEPs are openly calling for Ms Bowles to resign and are questioning whether a British MEP has the credibility to lead a committee dealing with the eurozone – a movement gathering momentum after Britain’s defiant stand at last week’s summit ... In a sign of the mounting pressure on British representatives in Brussels, Elmar Brok, a veteran German MEP, said it was time to “marginalise Britain, so that the country comes to feel its loss of influence” ...
So far so good. Our EUSSR comrades are wielding sticks and carrots to steer our political donkeys. Need we worry at all about their chosen beast? After all, the LibDems are among the EUSSR's most committed fifth columnists, so it seems a little mis-directed. Wait though, there may be some logic in their choice:
Although Ms Bowles’ views often clash with those of the UK Treasury, her position makes her the most influential British MEP and one of the diminishing points of UK leverage over a bout of Brussels rulemaking that seeks to reshape the City of London
Aha! Fortunately, the key word here is "seek." Good luck with that, comrades. And good luck with the Tobin Tax and censoring the output of the ratings agencies too. In fact, I hope you do both as soon as possible, the better to drive your investors to the City. We actually don't need the 15% of the EU's financial transactions carried out in your inferior, less trusted markets but times are tight and we wouldn't say no if you are really that stupid.
The EU is and always was a corrupt, anti-democratic farce. All that could perfect my schadenfreude as this delicious end-game unfolds would be for a British Prime Minister to have the testicular fortitude to lead us out before it collapses or we are expelled.
Not that being expelled from a collapsing edifice is such a terrible fate.
