Bank Charges

I note that the excitable Martin Lewis was interviewed last night on BBC News at Ten regarding the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on bank charges, here’s what he had to say:

I think we need to spit, I think we need to kick, I think we need to make sure that every MP in this land knows quite how angry that we are over this…

All well and good I’m sure. MPs will no doubt be aware of the anger but as EUReferendum points out there’s not a lot they can do about it even if they wanted to:

According to the judgement handed down, the issue depended "on the correct interpretation (in its European context) and application of Regulation 6(2) of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 SI 1999/2083."

However, we then see that: "The 1999 Regulations were made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 in order to transpose into national law Council Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts."

The UK Supreme Court has in effect based its judgment on EU law, specifically Council Directive 93/13/EEC, and unfortunately no amount of pontificating at MPs is going to change that - they are powerless.

As Dr North also points out, no reference is made to this EU Directive in the media, so how many millions of people this morning will be directing their anger in the right direction? Judging by the BBC Have Your Say site, not many.

There lies the insidious genius of the EU.