Gordon Brown now stands accused of sacrificing a powerful economic post in the EU in order to place Baroness Ashton in the Foreign Policy post to upset the Tories. The worry is that the French politician Michel Barnier will become the next internal market commissioner next month. This post oversees EU financial regulation and M. Barnier is a defender of French protectionism and is against the free market model.

This has put the wind up the big boys in the City. Their view is that this will mean the imposition of stiff new EU regulations on their operations, which will adversely affect profits. William Hague has said that M. Barnier is a serious concern to us and a threat to the economic issues that affect Britain the most. …read more