Roger Bootle > Quotes

“After all, the story of the EU from the beginning has been that you accept one set of arrangements and then, bit by bit, you are bludgeoned into accepting something much more draconian – something that if you had been presented with in the beginning you would have found unacceptable. It is death by a thousand cuts – or, more accurately, increases. It is widely recognized that financial services”
― Roger Bootle, The Trouble with Europe: Why the EU Isn't Working - How it Can Be Reformed - What Could Take Its Place

“We are where we are because of the astounding arrogance and incompetence of the European political elite. The saying is that democratic electorates get the leaders they deserve; heaven knows what the peoples of Europe have done to deserve their current leaders.”
― Roger Bootle, The Trouble with Europe: Why the EU Isn't Working - How it Can Be Reformed - What Could Take Its Place

“Should this prospect give British eurosceptics pause for thought? Quite the reverse. I have argued in this book that whatever the EU achieved for Europe in earlier decades, it is now beyond its useful life.”
― Roger Bootle, The Trouble with Europe: Why the EU Isn't Working - How it Can Be Reformed - What Could Take Its Place

“Improve the EU’s housekeeping, reduce regulation and stop the Union being such a busybody; 2. Allow countries to choose the level of integration that they want; 3. Push as much power and ‘competence’ as possible away from the centre; 4. Suspend the Schengen passport-free travel zone; 5. Significantly strengthen the external borders of whatever entity – either the EU as a whole or some inner core of it – that wants to maintain freedom of movement”
― Roger Bootle, The Trouble with Europe: Why the EU Isn't Working - How it Can Be Reformed - What Could Take Its Place