"Nobody ever lost money lending to the IMF": there's always a first time

At last, someone is calling Osborne and Cameron out on their oft-repeated "no government has ever lost money on lending to the IMF".  Here's what Cameron said in November last year:

"No government has ever lost money on lending to the IMF. It does not put British taxpayer money at risk. I'm not asking British taxpayers to contribute to the IMF because Europe has not done enough."

"Britain will not invest in the eurozone bailout fund, Britain will not invest in the IMF so that the IMF can invest in the eurozone bailout fund. Resourcing the IMF is not a substitute for the eurozone dealing with its own problems."

"The Greeks have to decide, do they want to stay in the eurozone and accept the package offered? What they can't do is string this out endlessly."

Hmmm.

Points to ponder:

1. the IMF cannot lend to the eurozone because it is a currency, not a country ...
2. therefore, it will have to become a country before it can be bailed out ...
3. therefore, the ESM will have to be ratified for this to occur and,
4. "Britain’s banks have $359bn of exposure to the private debt of the GIIPS quintet of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy"

When 1, 2 and 3 occurs, the EU becomes a totalitarian German-dominated country, or a two-tier trading/monetary arrangement, or it combusts.

Despite Osborne's seemingly resolute and iron-clad assurance that he would not allow IMF funds to be diverted to the eurozone, he will. Just as the ESM will be ratified* - unless MPs rebel.

MPs need to put country before party or preferment and give Cameron and Osborne unequivocal notice that they will not permit a backdoor euro bailout via the IMF and nor will they permit the ESM treaty to be ratified unless the UK's status is legally adjusted to that of trading partner, only.

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* As Denis Cooper notes:

"To be clear about this, British MPs will not be able to rebel over ratification of the intra-eurozone ESM treaty.

The UK will not be a party to that treaty, and so it will not need to be ratified by the UK before it can come into force, and so MPs will not be asked to pass a Bill to approve it.

The point at which British MPs would have the opportunity to rebel would be when the government introduced a Bill to approve the major EU treaty change agreed on March 25th 2011, the EU treaty change to grant the eurozone states the right under EU law to proceed with the ESM (and potentially do much more besides).
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do...

This is why the French Prime Minister recently said:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/05/eurozon...

"We need to ratify the treaty establishing the European Stability Mechanism and the corresponding revision of the European treaty so that this fund can enter into service from the month of July 2012"."