Osborne Refuse to Dole Out €31bn to Eurozone

Paul Donovan of UBS on Jeff Randall Live this evening stated that the EU needed to end its isolation from the UK. Sounds like a good idea to me and one which the likes of Germany would agree with since the German Foreign Minister spoke today of the need for his country to be part of a european project that we were a part of in order to cope with its past. I can understand that and would be happy to be part of a european project so long as that project was about free trade rather than the protectionism encapsulated in the CAP and the common fisheries policy. The first makes food expensive and the second destroys our fish stocks. We should say 'no' more often since after the orgy of abuse against us and attempts to make us the scapegoat for the failure of the eurozone members to solve the euro crisis the other EU members have never been so nice to us - apart of course from France. We have now said we will not contribute €31bn to the euro bail out fund which for dodgy legal reasons has to be paid to the IMF which will then pass it on to the eurozone countries which need it. Again the language against us is intemperate but we had made it clear all along that whereas we were happy to increase our sub to the IMF we would only do so if it were for the benefit of IMF members generally and not only or specifically to eurozone members. Funny isn't it that euroland fails to understand that when we make to statements we mean them but saying no on this second occasion may take longer to heal the rift although other EU countries may well be emboldened to follow a similar line. I have never understood why we should pay anything towards euro crisis suffering eurozone member countries when we warned of the consequences of joining the euro and when there was a solution at hand namely for Germany and the other strong euro economies to help Greece and perhaps Portugal (Dan Morris of JP Morgan thinks the fund being put together is far from enough and that . Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a good blog on this here.