Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

A very rough ride for in the Chamber today, as he fielded questions from MPs about the bill Britain could face for helping bail out the stricken Portuguese economy. But that could just be the appetiser for a bigger row, when the actual bill arrives, stamped in red letters with the words "payment now due".

This could be the row the hard core of Eurosceptics on the Conservative benches have been preparing for. Not an arcane constitutional dispute centred on the small print of a treaty or the meaning of some ancient parliamentary precedent, but an issue centred on hard cash at a time of dire economic hardship.

It could rouse the same new wave Tory backbenchers who roll their eyes when crabbed euro-rebels of vast seniority sink their teeth into the likes of the European Union Bill. Explaining to constituents why their public services are being cut, while perhaps Β£3.5bn of British taxpayers' money is being spent to help foreigners is not something they want to do - so a sharp rebellion may be on the cards.

If the occasion for rebellion arises. I hear whispers of attempts to secure a debate on a substantive motion from the Backbench Business Committee - but the vagaries of the Commons timetable means that there is no time to offer until May. For some reason Westminster is on holiday for most of April and then off again for a two week Whitsun recess in late May. So that approach may be a dead end.

In any event, this country may be unable to resile from a commitment to chip in to future euro-bailouts. But the catch is when that commitment was made. It was Alistair Darling, Labour's Chancellor, who signed Britain up to the , at a meeting after the general election, but before the Coalition had emerged as the next government. But as an outgoing minister acting at a moment of constitutional limbo between governments, he would surely have needed the agreement of his probable successor, George Osborne, to go ahead. Civil servants could not, properly, have committed an incoming government to something so significant, on the instructions of a defeated administration.

So the question then arises: are Mr Osborne's dabs on the bailout bill? We may not be able to wriggle out of the commitment, but did he agree to it at the time, and did he decide to stick with it on taking office, when he might have had an opportunity to repudiate it? And what advice was he given by Treasury civil servants? If freedom of information requests put down by produce evidence that the Chancellor either acquiesced to joining the bailout mechanism, or didn't dare disturb it, for fear of upsetting his new Lib Dem partners in government, his rising political stock could plunge very fast.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?