More on the EU "Dagger at the City" from yesterday in the Commons.

Last evening I quoted and provided links to part pf the debate in Parliament on the attempts to destroy the City of London by the EU, resulting in the re-distribution of some 15 to 20 per cent of Britain's entire tax revenues amongst the other é- members of the EU. The Hansard link is repeated here with these additioonal extracts which for me are equally as alarming as those I quoted late last evening:

Graham Stringer: The hon. Gentleman is making the powerful case, with which I agree, that this is malevolent legislation that is directed at undermining the City of London. I suspect he will agree with me that the Government should use the fundamental crisis at the heart of the European Union to be as brutal and as determined as possible in bringing back as many powers as they can, because the European Union is not a benevolent body when it comes to the UK’s interests.

Mr Cash: I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. The more I have heard from him over the past few years, the more I have admired his determination to speak the truth. That is the position. This is not a party game; this is serious and it is deadly. This move is determined and deliberate. That is what people need to know.

Roland Vaubel, the famous economist from Mannheim university, talks about the use of the qualified majority voting system in the Council of Ministers as a form of “regulatory collusion”, and mentions the strategy of deliberately raising rivals’ costs. Particular groups of countries—there are no prizes for guessing which—enter into arrangements behind the scenes, and vote accordingly. Both France and Germany use that system to their advantage, and as I said in the Financial Times the other day, we are being outmanoeuvred.

Despite all the time, money and effort being put into the Vickers report, there are, as the shadow Minister made clear, serious worries that Vickers may yet be undermined by the very proposals that we are discussing. The problem goes much further, but I do not need to enlarge upon all that any more.