Vocal Voices

Our Ex Ambassador to the EU has said that.

Sir Ivan said reports that Brussels officials were preparing an "exit bill" of 40 billion to 60 billion euros (£34 billion-£51 billion) for the UK were "genuine".

He said senior EU figures believe the costs of crashing out without a deal are so great that Britain cannot afford to refuse.

I wonder, now, how they are feeling about May's position? "No deal is better than a bad deal"!

This continued belief that they are the wold and that they can, unilaterally, dictate conditions to the UK, is going to cause them quite a lot of issues.

Perhaps they need to take a step back and remember why the UK has been a thorn in the side of the EU since it became an entity in the 1990's. The reason the UK is such a thorn in the side is because the UK is independently wealthy, less reliant on the EU than key EU countries are on the UK and also bolshie when pushed.

Any UK government which bows down to that Brexit bill will face judgement at the polls at the next election. Ergo the likelihood of it happening is low.

Why do the EU fail to recognise this?

Because most of the EU27 have PR elections and so can ignore what the people want!

It is bloody typical that this money is being passed off as a 'bill for leaving the EU' when it is nothing of the sort.

It is money to cover our liabilities for things we signed up for long before the referendum became a tingling in Cameron's groin area, and for projects which would be funded after we leave.

The figure might well be at the upper end of estimates, but zero is certainly not the correct one either.

A non story for a slack news day.

Not the way I see it.

We signed up to liabilities as a member of the EU. You don't pay your dues and subscriptions when you leave a club, even if you have signed on for extra stuff.

This is nothing more than a poison pill to stop other countries from leaving and we'd better tell them to stuff it if we have any common sense.