EU leaders urge UK to withraw budget veto threat

EU leaders have urged British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to reconsider his threat to use the veto to protect Britain’s multi-billion pound rebate or risk crippling negotiations.

Mr Straw sparked fury in Brussels yesterday by entering talks on the rebate’s future vowing the UK government would simply block the EU’s entire future spending proposals if they included ditching a deal which cuts Britain’s EU bill by three billion pounds a year.