José Manuel Barroso’s comments about euroscepticism might have revealed something rather warped about the Eurocrat mindset, but it has also provided quite an opportunity for David Cameron to show his party where his own loyalties lie. This afternoon the Prime Minister told Iain Dale’s LBC show that he planned to have a ‘pretty robust’ exchange with with the President of the European Commission. He said:
‘You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth in this job, and I sometimes tell other people what to do and sometimes people give you a bit of advice as well. I mean, the Barroso thing did annoy me, because frankly, you know, his job is to serve the members of the European Union, and, you know, the British Conservatives in the European Parliament are an important party, they are the governing party of the United Kingdom, and he should be respecting their views rather than trying to lecture them.
‘They have got an important contribution to make and I think he got it wrong, and I’ll tell him that when I – we have a good relationship, I get on with him, we sometimes have some pretty robust exchanges, and I suspect this will probably be one of them.’
Nothing like going to Brussels and standing up to a Eurocrat who symbolises much of what Tory MPs despise about the EU to cheer the party. Presumably he’ll set this ‘robust exchange’ to music too…
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