Friday 14 March 2014

Particularly Vociferous

Here:
 
British Foreign Secretary William Hague is due to hold talks with the US Secretary of State John Kerry on Ukraine. The idea of Britain contributing to an EU bailout package for Ukraine has already provoked reaction from several British Members of Parliament. The outspoken Labour MP Denis Skinner was particularly vociferous in criticising the notion. We asked him why he felt it was a bad idea.
 
"There are some people in the Ukraine who would be regarded as fascists. And they are EU fanatics because at this time when the EU is in a right old mess, they actually want to be members. Here we are in a Britain currently riddled with austerity and you've got the audacity to be handing out money from people's pockets in Britain to EU fanatics in the Ukraine," Mr Skinner told us.
 
Mr Hague did say that wouldn't be the case, that the money would come from the IMF not from British people's pockets.
 
"Who pays those IMF drawing rights? Is it Mr Hague? No. Where do you think that money comes from?
 
Is your primary concern that Britain can't afford it or is it that we shouldn't be putting money into EU projects?
 
"It's several things. I don't think that the British people should be making contributions to people in Ukraine who have demanded that they want to expel blacks, Jews and Russians from their soil. How far can we go handing out this money?
 
"I don't care whether it's from the IMF or the EU - the EU is talking about contributing money now. Where do you think that's coming from?"
 
Are you concerned you couldn't be sure where the money ends up?
 
"These people have been bussed in for weeks into the square in Kiev - you're telling me that they've got that kind of money and yet Britain is going to contribute? We don't know from one minute to the next who's in charge. Give me a break!"
 
Presumably the EU and the British foreign secretary would be cautious.
 
"No they wouldn't be cautious. They pay according to the ratio of drawing rights in the UN. Some of the nations that would be asked to contribute would be as strapped for cash as they are in Ukraine."
 
Do you think Britain in general pays too much into its EU obligations?
 
"I'm against the Common Market as it was in 1971, not from a nationalist point of view but because I believed eventually it would be proved to be incapable of carrying out the proposals that it would eventually be saddled with.
 
"You'll find that Dennis Skinner proposed and voted for a referendum long before Cameron was prime minister.
 
Cameron made a promise to the British people that if he was elected prime minister there would be a referendum in this parliament and he has reneged on it. Now 'Dodgy Dave' has come up with another proposition? Does anyone believe he'll carry it out? You must have dropped off a Christmas tree if you believe that."

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