On parliament and the EU budget

In parliament, Labour voted with Tory europhobes last week to express the view that the next seven year budget for the EU should be less than the previous seven years budget. I think this is playing with fire. In voting with the Tory backwoodsmen, Labour gives credibility to their xenophobia and also to their austerity agenda. It is also committing to cuts for seven years. However it is a fact that the EU budget is about 1% of EU GDP and can thus not have much impact on the growth of the European economy, although the pump priming aspect of the expenditure programmes is one of the reasons that the majority of the EU member states want to see an increase in expenditure. …