It is the bankers who pay the rat Lawson who want London as an offshore money-laundering centre outside the EU. This is what Lawson said about the EU today:
“Economic disadvantages are much greater than the advantages. In particular – it is not the only thing, but in particular – the attempt to overregulate and to cut down to size the financial services sector, banking and financial services including insurance which we need in this country, this is already causing great concern to people in the Bank of England, it is extremely damaging to one of our biggest industries so the economic minus is a very big one.”
BBC News Channel today 12.43PM.
It was of course Lawson who was Thatcher’s accomplice in destroying most of our real industries, the ones which actually made something visible. It was replaced by the crazed idea of elevating the financial services sector, from providers of middlemen services for a small percentage, into the greatest net recipients of income in the economy, through creation of price gambling instruments and South Sea Bubble schemes. The result has on average cost everybody in the UK and US the equivalent of their housing cost again in extra tax, plus plunged the entire world into recession.
All that tax, plus the 225 billion sterling extra money from QE in the UK alone, has just been given to the bankers so they can have no interruption in their gambling or lifestyles.
Let us not exaggerate the marginal changes the EU has been seeking to make. Instead of banning whole classes of derivative trading, they are merely looking to institute a transaction tax (entirely sensible in itself) and put some limit to the financial rewards of bankers – who will still get massively better paid than equivalent workers elsewhere. But even that is too much moderation for the insatiable greed of Lawson and his ilk, and they would rather destroy the EU than have any bounds placed on their wealth.
In a recent posting, I pointed out that, precisely opposite to the way it had been reported in the mainstream media, the recent Eurobarometer poll showed that voters, specifically including UK voters, had more trust in the EU than in national government. They also wanted the EU to control the likes of Lawson and his chums in the City:
Here are some more details of the Eurobarometer poll the Guardian omitted in its total misrepresentation. 70% wish to see a stronger EU role in regulating the financial services industry (p.28) and on the same page, 76% want to see stronger EU coordination of economic policy.
Large majorities across Europe support:
the introduction of a tax on financial transactions (71%)
tighter rules for credit rating agencies (79%)
a tax on profits made by banks (83%)
tighter rules on tax avoidance and tax havens (61%)These are all areas where the Tory government has been among those blocking effective EU action, against the will of the people of the EU.
That is why the bankers are against the EU.