Penny Mordaunt was wrong. Before the EU Referendum the Leave Campaign misled the British public by publishing and distributing leaflets that frightened people, warning them that Turkey could soon be allowed to be a member state of the EU. That claim was incorrect. Although `qualified majority voting' has been introduced it does not apply to major areas such as financial affairs and taxation. Each member state still has a veto on accession of countries to the EU. (Even in the case of those situations where qualified majority voting applies `The blocking minority must include at least four Council members representing more than 35% of the EU population.'
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`Fact Check: would the UK have a veto on Turkey joining the EU?'
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`Mordaunt’s comments raise the question of whether existing EU member states are able to veto new states joining. The answer is yes. Accession of a candidate state must be approved unanimously by the Council of the EU, which is made up of representatives from each member state, and ratified by all national parliaments. This gives each member state a veto over the process. So even if Turkey were to fulfil all of the eligibility criteria (it’s not even close), and even if all other member states favoured accession (they don’t), the UK would still be able to veto.'
It wasn't just Penny Mordaunt, even the great intellect of Michael Gove was missing when back in April 2016 he wrote: `Albania is on course to join the European Union — alongside four other countries, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. The already unwieldy group of 28 is due to become a throng of 33. And Britain isn’t just backing this move. We’re paying for it. Every week we send £350 million to the EU. And now millions of your hard-earned taxes are being directed to these five prospective members.'
Daily Mail
I notice that he also included that famous red bus statement `Every week we send £350 million to the EU'. Which also was misleading. I'm sure Gove is clever enough to know the true facts and it just goes to show that he was deliberately trying to mislead. If it were Boris I'd put it down to other reasons, of course! No wonder we're in such a mess!