What's the Difference Between EU Directives and Onions?

Britain will pay up. Picture from the European People's Party.

No-one cries when you chop up EU directives.

Benefit to the UK of EU membership no. 233: an official somewhere in Germany incorrectly announces to the world press that Spain was the source of the e-coli, and British taxpayers have to pay the bill. £16.6 million, in fact, has been contributed gratefully by the British taxpayer to assist the Spanish farmers affected by the false information.

Why should Britain pay? No, I'm not demanding exceptionalism for us if we were responsible. But we played no part in any of this, and we're suddenly on the hook for twenty million pounds? Twenty million, of course, doesn't quite compare to the nine thousand six hundred million we pay the EU each year in net membership fees, or the twenty thousand million we've so far contributed to the utterly ineffectual bailout scheme. But it could still save one town somewhere from local budget cuts. And there's no good reason why we should pay it.

Whoever is to blame should pay compensation. It's a simple idea, really, and a just one. But 'European solidarity' has demanded that everyone is collectively responsible, and everyone should pay up. You don't have to be a hardened Eurosceptic to see that that simply does not make sense.