Ross Clark

kitty. Or maybe don’t feel all that sorry for him – he was one recipient of EU funds held responsible for ¤888million worth of fraud identified in 2015. It turned out that, besides the factory, he also owned the company which was going to undertake the modernisation work, the bill for which he had exaggerated.

Exaggerated bills – of which Michel Barnier’s is a prime example – have long been part of EU culture. From the fraudulent payments for nonexistent sheep to the £120,000 a year expenses which can be claimed by MEPs without having to provide much in the way of receipts, the EU is drunk on easy cash. Its leaders even had the cheek to demand an increase in the EU budget at the same time as demanding member states better balance their own books.

For decades Britain has been paying more than its fair share. Of 28 EU nations Britain is the second-highest of only eight net contributors. Germany contributes a higher net sum but then it has a higher population.

As for EU spending, Britain receives less per head than any other EU member – at ¤107 per person per year it is a fraction of the ¤2,993 per head spent on the citizens of Luxembourg. I dare say we would manage just fine without those payments – not least the £900,000 in agricultural subsidies received in the 10 years leading up to 2011 by Lord Heseltine, the Europhile Conservative who owns 1,200 acres in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.

It isn’t just over its budget that the EU faces a crisis when Britain leaves. How many times have we heard Remainers try to assert that British exporters face Armageddon if the EU negotiations collapse and tariff barriers are erected to crossChannel trade?

Tariffs would take a chunk out of our economy, which is why the Government is working to achieve a free trade deal. But to make out that Britain would suffer disproportionately is wrong.

In 2016, we exported £241billion worth of goods and services to other EU countries and imported £312billion worth from them – giving us a trade deficit of £71billion. With the rest of the world, by the way, we ran a £34billion surplus.

PUT another way, EU exporters have even more to lose than UK exporters if the EU chooses to provoke a trade war. Michel Barnier must already know this. The question is: how much longer are commercial interests in the EU going to let him carry on trying to punish the UK before they round on him and warn him that he will be punishing them even more?

My guess is it won’t be much longer before there is a serious backlash against Barnier and his team from elsewhere in the EU. I wouldn’t rate his chances of remaining in his job as chief negotiator all the way to the end of the Brexit process.

The sad thing is that we would be able to do rapid, amicable deals individually with almost all the countries which make up the EU – with I guess just Spain trying to make a thing about Gibraltar and Greece demanding the Elgin Marbles. It is the institution itself, with its arrogance and grandstanding, which is the problem.

Michel Barnier has revealed his fears that Britain’s departure could cause political chaos within the EU. Maybe it will not even survive Brexit.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that that would be no bad thing.

‘We have paid more than our fair share’