Bosphorus Tea Party

Dubious term for Anglo-American discord concerning permanent seats on the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking in Istanbul ahead of the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting, Britain’s finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, signaled that he did not intend to relinquish his country’s permanent seat on the organization.

Edmund Conway reported in The Telegraph:

The Chancellor said the UK, which is one of the IMF’s biggest contributors, would insist on “no taxation without representation.” The Chancellor’s decision to refer to the mantra of the American revolutionaries is significant since the US is pushing hard for smaller countries including the UK to give up their permanent seats on the Washington-based Fund. Indeed, Treasury insiders at the IMF and World Bank’s annual meetings in Istanbul have referred to the stand-off half-jokingly as the “Bosphorus Tea Party.”