Brexiteer Mark Francois has urged Boris Johnson to stop paying the EU for post-Brexit arrangements after the UK’s decision to leave the EU led to a number of issues in Northern Ireland.
The chair of the European Research Group and Tory MP said the prime minister should reconsider paying £20bn worth of payments over the next two years because he believes the EU is unfairly forcing regulations on UK exports.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Francois described the payments as ‘Danegeld’, a land tax levied in Anglo-Saxon England during the reign of King Ethelred to raise funds for protection against Danish invaders.
“Since we left the Transition Period the EU’s attitude has been increasing bellicose,” he explained.
“First they criticised our ‘British’ vaccine and then attacked us for not giving them enough of it; then they triggered Article 16, in some overnight spasm, to create a hard border they had sworn to avoid – and now they are petulantly refusing to ratify a trade deal which it took a year to negotiate.
“As Brits, we traditionally honour our obligations but you have to ask yourself why are we continuing to pay this ‘Danegeld’ to people who only treat us with open contempt in return?”
Johnson claimed last week that the arrangements were not working as originally envisaged.
“It needs to be corrected, you can’t have a situation in which soil or parcels or tractors with mud on their tyres or whatever are prevented from moving easily from one part of the UK to another – it’s all one United Kingdom,” he told reporters.
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