Eurosceptic Tory MPs claim ‘absurd’ £36bn Brexit bill will struggle to get past Parliament vote
Senior Conservative backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg was amongst ministers insisting we owe the EU 'nothing'
BREXITEERS branded a touted £36billion bill to the EU as “absurd” yesterday, threatening a veto if it went to Parliament.
Leading Tories queued up yesterday to scorn reports ministers were looking at paying the vast sum – including net payments of £9bn a year for up to three years after we quit.
Senior Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg insisted we owed the EU “nothing” and should only “be paying into schemes that we wish to remain involved with”.
EU negotiators want to finalise a bill with Britain before moving on to vital trade talks.
But Mr Mogg told The Sun: “I think it is a sign of negotiating weakness to allow numbers to be discussed at this point.
“To agree this amount of money at this stage would be a bad deal. We should be very tough on the money. It is our best negotiating card and they need it – we’ve got it.
“We shouldn’t agree to give them any money until they have given us substantial important things that we want.
“It is playing the EU’s game when we have no legal obligation to pay them anything at all.”
It followed incendiary comments from Luxembourg’s PM last week who said Britain should cough up £50bn to leave.
Tory MP Peter Bone said a Brexit fee that high was unlikely to get through Parliament.
He said: “One of the prime reasons the UK voted to leave the EU was to stop sending them billions of pounds per year, so it would be totally bizarre to give the EU any money, let alone £36 billion, given also that over the years that we have been in the EU or its predecessor we have given them, net, over £200 billion.
“If there was going to be any transfer of money then it should be from the EU to the UK.”
He added: “I think it would be very strange of Parliament to pay billions of pounds to leave an organisation that you have given hundreds of billions of pounds to and got nothing in return.
"That would be a very strange decision, so I don’t think it would happen.”
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Former Cabinet minister John Redwood also said it was “completely ridiculous” to suggest the UK would have to pay to get Brussels to talk about trade.
He said: “Ministers would be quite wrong to be talking about any figures, we don’t owe them any money.
“It would be silly to be offering something when the EU is still not very willing to talk and is not coming up with anything constructive on its own side.
“The EU’s tactic is very clear. It’s divide and rule to try and get Britain negotiating with herself.
His vicious attack followed a YouGov poll that suggested 61% of Leave voters would consider significant damage to the British economy to be a price worth paying for leaving the EU.
He said: “The old have comprehensively shafted the young. And the old have had the last word about Brexit, imposing a world view coloured by nostalgia for an imperial past on a younger generation much more comfortable with modern Europe.”
Last night a former No10 adviser warned the Tories must tax wealth and back the “struggling many” or risk losing the next election.
Policy adviser Will Tanner said ministers needed to push for higher tax on sales of expensive homes, more rights for workers and curbs on immigration.