EU power grab

24 July 2010

The Spectator on the British government's approach to Brussels

No Prime Minister wants to do battle with the European Union, which is why it has accrued so much power in such a short space of time. When preparing for government, David Cameron was warned by the Civil Service that if he wanted to wrestle powers back from Brussels — as he has promised to do in party conference speeches — then it would absorb at least a year of his time in Downing Street. Since then, his approach has been to spend as little time as he can on the subject, hoping it will not appear on his political radar.

While he may well have no interest in Brussels, but Brussels has all too much interest in Britain. For years, the European Commission has envied the way that financiers from across the Continent gravitate towards London — and are, even now, generating billions in tax revenues to help close the deficit. The upside of Goldman Sachs giving an average £180,000 bonus to staff is that half of this sum will be handed to HM Treasury. Finding a way of making London less attractive to the financiers remains one of the European Commission’s main priorities.

All it needs from the British government is no resistance — and since Gordon Brown moved into 10 Downing Street, this is what it has had. Mired in his electoral woes, Mr Brown dropped his (previously formidable) opposition to EU meddling. One result was the proposed pan-European financial regulator. Rather than fight it, ministers accepted the sops being offered, such as the idea that the regulator would be in London rather than Frankfurt. What matters, alas, is not where the building is, but what goes on inside it.

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