Bill Carmichael: Getting out of the EU is worth every penny

The EU is absolutely desperate to get its greedy hands on some more British taxpayers’ cash in order to keep the busted jalopy on the road for a couple of more years – and it will junk any moral standards to do so.

To quote Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well I have others.”

The EU began by demanding almost £100bn in a divorce settlement – without specifying exactly what we were paying for. How often does a buyer agree a price with no idea of what he or she is buying? Not often I’d suggest.

The British replied with a detailed legal analysis that concluded we didn’t owe the EU a bean, but in the spirit of compromise – not reciprocated at all by the EU side – the UK offered to pay a substantial amount, said to be in the region of £20bn, in return for free trade access.

Now, according to reports this week, a deal has finally been struck, although the details are at the moment decidedly muddy. It could be anywhere between £40-£50bn depending on which newspaper you read, although Downing Street is playing down the higher figure and insisting that any payment is contingent on a free trade deal.

In other words, we won’t be paying blindly up front as the EU insists we must. In many ways, this is utterly crazy. Remember we owe the EU nothing and the key thing about a free trade deal is that it is beneficial to both sides – it helps German car manufacturers and French wine producers just as much as it helps British exporters to Europe.

But if a free trade deal really is on offer, then £40bn would represent an absolute bargain. We wouldn’t have to pay our current contributions – the thick end of £10bn a year, which is likely to increase dramatically if we were foolish enough to stay in the EU.

So in less than five years time, such a deal would in effect pay for itself. We will have all the benefits of free trade with Europe with none of the disadvantages of being weighed down by the bureaucracy, waste and corruption and, of course, all the deluded United States of Europe nonsense.

Plus we would reap all the advantages of once again being an independent self-governing democracy able to strike deals with those economies around the world that are thriving (unlike the moribund EU).

That’s what I call a win-win.

And it is worth pointing out that the negotiations would probably have run much more smoothly if a Fifth Column of Remoaners had not acted directly against the British national interest by trying to sabotage a deal at every turn. Yes, Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg I am talking about you.

As for the EU, you can see why they desperately need the money. British withdrawal – and our huge budget contribution – is a massive £10bn a year hole below the waterline that could well send the entire ship to the bottom.

Brussels needs the money to bribe and bully increasingly recalcitrant member states in the south and east and persuade them that it worth staying aboard the leaky vessel.

But the other net contributors are decidedly reluctant to increase their contributions to make up for British withdrawal. The Scandinavian countries have explicitly ruled out big increases, and the rise of the Eurosceptic popularism in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands means increasing their bill is politically difficult, if not impossible.

The European Commission’s only other idea to increase revenue – rising taxes, such as a financial transaction tax – will just kill already sclerotic growth stone dead.

So the whole thing looks increasingly shaky. And that’s before we mention huge levels of debt and unemployment, the disintegration of Spain, the ruination of the Italian and German banks and the small matter of open doors immigration and a wave of terror attacks.

Make no mistake – we are getting out just in time, and £40bn will soon seem a very small price to pay.