This looks like fun

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.

I genuinely do worry for you. You are a very intelligent person but you seem to revel in this ridiculous baiting. I've no idea why you do it.

[Bentley Bullet]

Yes, Billy. I believe in the concept of truth, but for everyone, not just what political side they are on.

[BillyStubbsTears]

So, on this SPECIFIC issue, you agree that Johnson and the Vote Leave campaign were lying when they said this? Fully FIVE WEEKS after the head of the Office for National Statistics had taken the exceptional step of publicly upbraiding them for misleading voters with this figure.

https://twitter.com/vote_leave/status/735380643195064320

You DO agree that they were deliberately lying by saying that we sent £350m/week to the EU when we didn't?
Simple answer. Yes or No.

[Bentley Bullet]

No

[BillyStubbsTears]

Astonishing. Just astonishing. Is that where we've come to?

[Bentley Bullet]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/05/29/boris-didnt-lie-even-did-harassing-brexiteers-courts-outrageous/

[BillyStubbsTears]

I have no idea what point you are trying to make with that article BB. It's behind a paywall. What I DID read before the paywall faded out leaves me questioning the bona fides of Andrew Lilico (not for the first time I'd add) as an honest purveyor of information. He's implying that Matthew Elliott, Dominic Cummings and Darren Grimes have been "repeatedly harrassed through legal processes". Yes. In democracies, we have this funny thing about investigating crimes and prosecuting people when the evidence of crimes is there. Which is what happened to Darren Grimes for example, for massively flouting national laws on election spending during the referendum.

But we're getting away from the point.

Forget Lilico's opinion. I expect that from him, because he has a track record of waiving away inconvenient facts and he's paid to do it by the Institute of Economic Affairs, which steadfastly refuses to tell us where it gets its funding from.

My question was about whether YOU believed Johnson and Vote Leave had repeatedly lied by saying that we sent £350m/week to the EU, when the head of the UK National Office of Statistics had categorically explained that we don't.

Why don't you think Johnson lied?

[Bentley Bullet]

You can subscribe for free. I just did. I thought you'd be able to read it all.

Anyway, it basically points out that we do pay 350 million quid a week to the EU.

[Bentley Bullet]

How happy, innocent and naïve we all were! We thought - we fools - it worked liked this: you have a campaign; people vote; someone wins; the thing people voted for happens; life and politics move on to the next debate.

But no. Instead, the way it works is: if you vote the wrong way, the thing you voted for doesn’t happen and the people who campaigned for that wrong thing get hounded through the courts.

Since the EU referendum, Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, Darren Grimes, head of the youth campaign BeLeave, and Dominic Cummings, Campaign Director of Vote Leave, have all been repeatedly harassed through legal processes. Now Boris Johnson has been ordered to appear before the courts to face a criminal charge related to his repeating the claim that the UK sends £350 million each week to Brussels.

Proper procedures should of course be followed when campaigning, but this sustained legal harassment of people simply for having had the temerity to campaign to leave the EU is outrageous. It is truly the conduct of anti-democratic authoritarian regimes the world over.

It’s bad enough that when dictators say some public vote should be ignored they can appeal to the UK government’s ignoring of the EU referendum as precedent, but now they can also say the same when they lock up their political opponents on trumped up charges simply for standing against them.

Taking your political opponents to court for the things they said in campaigns cannot end happily. Suppose we finally get a pro-Brexit government.


Will David Cameron then be arrested for having said he would trigger Article 50 immediately following the election? Will George Osborne be taken to court for claiming a vote to leave would mean an emergency budget raising taxes and accompanied by interest rate hikes?

How much jail time will there be for the civil servants that drafted that leaflet sent to every home saying: “This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide”? If pro-Brexit people can face criminal charges for things they said in political campaigns, why can’t anti-Brexit people?

It shouldn’t matter to this discussion, but it’s also quite wrong to claim that the “£350 million sent to Brussels” claim was a lie. It was not the figure I favoured using during the referendum campaign, but it definitely was not a lie, for many reasons.

The most straightforward of these is that that was indeed approximately the UK’s gross contribution to the EU budget. It just was. Saying “Ah, but we get a rebate” misses a fundamental point: the rebate is paid to the UK by the member states, not by the EU. The EU does not give us a discount on our membership fee; rather the member states pay us something in return.

If I send Fred £350 million per week, and then Jane and Eliza send me £100 million per week, that does not change the fact that I send Fred £350 million per week. It does mean that saying “I send Fred £350 million per week” is not the whole story, but it is not a lie.

Second, the £350 million claim is not a lie because in fact even when one takes the wider context into account, it’s roughly the correct amount. Critics of the figure say it neglects the rebate. But that criticism neglects the supposed accumulated “liabilities” that we’ve become aware of as the “divorce bill”. A little over half the £40 billion or so “divorce bill” takes that form. If we spread £23 billion in such “liabilities” over five years and add the weekly sum of that to the £250 million or so weekly sum, net of the rebate, then we come to about £340 million per week “sent to Brussels” as an overall net figure.

So it’s just wrong to call the £350 million figure a lie. It is not a “lie” in any sense. It is not a lie in that it was the literal amount, and it’s not a lie in that it was the overall amount once one took everything into consideration. If we had stayed in the EU long enough, that would have been roughly the actual overall net weekly figure we would have sent to the EU in respect of the years Boris and Vote Leave referred to.

Political claims should be for voters to assess — for them to decide whether they believe them and, subsequently, whether they feel they were true in substance even if not precisely accurate in every detail. We should not accept the principle that such matters are for courts, not democracy, to pronounce upon.


Related Topics
EU Referendum
 
Boris Johnson
1530

[TommyC]

So if you look at the actual figures produced by the ONS about how much we actually send to the EU, it makes for interesting reading.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/theukcontributiontotheeubudget/2017-10-31

So basically, the battle bus used the gross figure (which actually equates to more than £350 million a week). It didn't take into account the rebate and money returned through other initiatives. Had they done so it would have been a figure in the region of £180 million a week. So still a fair old chunk of cash but admittedly not as much as it said on the bus.

Naughty to use the gross instead of the net however more a case of politicians presenting something one way to suit their means rather that a total fabrication. It is at least based on some loose facts albeit conveniently forgetting the rebates etc.

Surely the key question would be do we actually think less people would have voted leave if they had used the £180 million true figure instead of the £350 million figure they used? They both sound a lot of money to me and I'm not sure the difference between the gross and net figures would actually have made much of a difference to the point they were trying to make.

My view for what its worth is that this prosecution is a waste of time and money and totally inappropriate. I'd bet money on either the AG stepping in to prevent it or that it fails at Court. What a waste of Court time and a lot of cash for all involved.

 Leave our politicians (all of whom bend and twist "facts" to suit their own agenda) to be judged at the ballot box. This is not misfeasance in a public office and the pivate prosecution will fail, quite rightly so too. Lawyers should not be the adjudicator of political discourse. And I say that as a lawyer.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.

You choose who you want to believe on this.

Someone who is paid by a far-right economic pressure group which itself refuses to say who funds it.

Or the career statistician at the head of the non-partisan body tasked with ensuring that the statistics that we mae our decisions on are correct.

This is what the latter said.

"The UK’s official gross contribution for 2014 before the application of the rebate was £19.1 billion. As I have made clear previously, this is not an amount of money that the UK pays to the EU each year. The full £19.1 billion is not a net contribution."
https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/uk-contributions-to-the-eu/

He also said "I note the use of the £350 million figure, which appears to be a gross figure which does not take into account the rebate or other flows from the EU to the UK public sector (or flows to non-public sector bodies), alongside the suggestion that this could be spent elsewhere. Without further explanation I consider these statements to be potentially misleading. Given the high level of public interest in this debate it is important that official statistics are used accurately, with important limitations or caveats clearly explained."
https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/eu-contributions/

Johnson and the Leave campaign continued to use the £350m figure for more than a month after this letter, before they finally appeared to reach the limits of even their embarrassment and let it fade away over the last few weeks of the campaign.

[Herbert Anchovy]

I think we can safely assume that the guy who took this action did so to try and undermine the result of the referendum more than anything to do with carrying out a moralistic crusade against bullshitting politicians. All politicians lie, that's a given but this clearly ticked a few boxes for him. Saying that, purely on a selfish basis I find it hilarious because I don't like Johnson.

[selby]

  Billy, I don't know about the £350 million a week we pay in to the Eu, an economist on talkradio yesterday did say that we contribute £58 million a day,  times seven is about the same, I have no information myself whether it is correct or not, probably you know better than I.
   But on the same programme were two business people, one who sold the 99p group of shops two years ago, and was of Asian immigrant stock, and a Welsh owner of a solar panel firm.
   Both said that import duty tariffs imposed by the EU to protect things not produced in this country,LED light bulbs, olive oil, solar panels,coffee, cerials etc.etc. put the purchase price up to the consumer by at least 30%, and affected the poorest people in this country the most.
   In the case of LED light bulbs when tariffs were imposed it was to protect the one factory in the EU at the time that produced them in Germany, and a similar situation with the solar panels.
   Goes against saving the planet when making cheap energy available to the poorest is ignored to protect Philip's profit margins and a small work force on the continent.
    And as the shop owner pointed out he could buy olive oil from Tunisia as well as orange juice far cheaper than from a protectionist EU.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Tommy.

It's more than "naughty". It was an out and out deception and fabrication. Because it gave the clear and unambiguous message that we are £350m/week out of pocket through the deal with the EU.

I agree that they might well have made a similar impact with the £180m figure. Which raises the question - why didn't they? Why not use a truthful figure?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.

By the way. That article by Lilico. There was something bugging me about it and I couldn't figure out what. But it's just hit me.

It's not the obvious one. The bit where he says "If I send Fred £350 million per week, and then Jane and Eliza send me £100 million per week, that does not change the fact that I send Fred £350 million per week. It does mean that saying “I send Fred £350 million per week” is not the whole story, but it is not a lie.".

No, that bit is just dissembling shite.

The bit that is REALLY naughty is this:
"Second, the £350 million claim is not a lie because in fact even when one takes the wider context into account, it’s roughly the correct amount. Critics of the figure say it neglects the rebate. But that criticism neglects the supposed accumulated “liabilities” that we’ve become aware of as the “divorce bill”. A little over half the £40 billion or so “divorce bill” takes that form. If we spread £23 billion in such “liabilities” over five years and add the weekly sum of that to the £250 million or so weekly sum, net of the rebate, then we come to about £340 million per week “sent to Brussels” as an overall net figure."

That's REALLY naughty. For two reasons.

Firstly, because our payment for these liabilities has only been fastracked  because we are leaving. If we hadn't left, they would have been paid down over many, many decades. Secondly, because even with us leaving, we are NOT going to be paying them back over 5 years. we will be paying the liabilities off until well into the 2040s. He's plucked that 5 year figure out of the air to make the numbers work.

See, that's his job. He's a hired hand, using his not inconsiderable influence to push the agenda that the unknown people who fund the IEA want to have pushed.


He says that the £350m/week figure was fair because if you're going to include the

[Glyn_Wigley]

  Billy, I don't know about the £350 million a week we pay in to the Eu, an economist on talkradio yesterday did say that we contribute £58 million a day,  times seven is about the same, I have no information myself whether it is correct or not, probably you know better than I.
   But on the same programme were two business people, one who sold the 99p group of shops two years ago, and was of Asian immigrant stock, and a Welsh owner of a solar panel firm.
   Both said that import duty tariffs imposed by the EU to protect things not produced in this country,LED light bulbs, olive oil, solar panels,coffee, cerials etc.etc. put the purchase price up to the consumer by at least 30%, and affected the poorest people in this country the most.
   In the case of LED light bulbs when tariffs were imposed it was to protect the one factory in the EU at the time that produced them in Germany, and a similar situation with the solar panels.
   Goes against saving the planet when making cheap energy available to the poorest is ignored to protect Philip's profit margins and a small work force on the continent.
    And as the shop owner pointed out he could buy olive oil from Tunisia as well as orange juice far cheaper than from a protectionist EU.

I just looked up olive oil from Tunisia. There is no Customs Duty on olive oil of Tunisian origin because of to the EC Preference Scheme. There is also no duty on oilve oil imported from the EU due to being in the single market. When we leave the EU and the Single Market, we will lose Duty-free trade with the EU, and will also be throwing away the EC Preference agreement with Tunisia. It will mean importing from both will be more expensive than it is now.

What I don't get from what you've said is that earlier in the the paragraph you say the EU impose import Duty Tariffs on olive oil (and other things) putting the purchase price up by at least 30%. But they certainly don't on olive oil!

EDIT: I've just looked up Duty rates from third countries with no preference agreement:
Coffee - 7.5%
Solar panels - 2.6%
LED bulbs - 2.7%
Olive oil - 124.4 Euros per 100kg.
Cereals is too vague to know exactly what to look up.
Given those Duty rates, I really have to ask where this 'at least 30%' rubbish is coming from?

[Herbert Anchovy]

According to the BBC yesterday, the UK was one of only 9 net contributors to the EU in 2017. We were the second largest net contributor after Germany with a contribution of 6.55 billion pounds. The other 18 countries took out more from the EU than they contributed. Our contribution equates to around 112 euro per person.

[The Red Baron]

I realise people are salivating over the prospect of Johnson being locked up, but actually this sets a dangerous precedent. The way to deal with politicians who lie is not to vote for them, not to drag them before the courts.

Apparently Theresa May said 108 times (I wasn't counting but someone with time on their hands did) that the UK would be leaving the EU on 29th March. She must be waiting nervously for the knock on the door.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Come on TRB. You can't prosecute someone for being detached from reality.

The European Convention on Human Rights wouldn...oh...hang on!

[The Red Baron]

Come on TRB. You can't prosecute someone for being detached from reality.

The European Convention on Human Rights wouldn...oh...hang on!

Don't get me started on May. She has been almost criminally useless. Although the  "almost" is the critical bit. She is a hopeless failure as a PM, but we'd be getting in the area of Show Trials if she could in some way be prosecuted for her incompetence, rather than just sacked.

If the Johnson case isn't thrown out as soon as it goes to Crown Court, all bets will be off. I can only conclude that the Judge who decided it could proceed is a politically-motivated Remainer who is too blind to see the bigger picture.

[wilts rover]

So who's right and who's wrong then?

Johnson who said that after we leave the EU we could give £350 million to the NHS

or Farage who said that can't be guaranteed, he would never have made that claim and it was a mistake to say it

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/nigel-farage-350-million-pledge-to-fund-the-nhs-was-a-mistake/

[The Red Baron]

On balance, I think Farage is probably right on this one. But that doesn't mean I think Johnson should be prosecuted.

On the other hand, a lawsuit against Mesut Ozil for stealing a wage would have a very good chance of success.

[Not Now Kato]

According to the BBC yesterday, the UK was one of only 9 net contributors to the EU in 2017. We were the second largest net contributor after Germany with a contribution of 6.55 billion pounds. The other 18 countries took out more from the EU than they contributed. Our contribution equates to around 112 euro per person.

Seems you don't understand the club we currently belong to, like most leavers!  We actually gain far more than we contribute - as has been demonstrated numerous times.  But go on, keep believing the lies propagated by the likes of Farrage and the Daily Mail.  Oh, and please, don't complain when things get really bad when we ultimately leave the club, especially if it's with no deal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

Problem with the "you can vote them out if they lie" line is that this is not about a General Election.

I assume you're not saying we should have a chance to revisit the Referendum because of this lie.

And if you're not, then where's the sanction, other than legal action?

[BillyStubbsTears]

According to the BBC yesterday, the UK was one of only 9 net contributors to the EU in 2017. We were the second largest net contributor after Germany with a contribution of 6.55 billion pounds. The other 18 countries took out more from the EU than they contributed. Our contribution equates to around 112 euro per person.

Seems you don't understand the club we currently belong to, like most leavers!  We actually gain far more than we contribute - as has been demonstrated numerous times.  But go on, keep believing the lies propagated by the likes of Farrage and the Daily Mail.  Oh, and please, don't complain when things get really bad when we ultimately leave the club, especially if it's with no deal.

Before the 2016 vote, the Treasury was predicting around 2.3% growth over the next decade on the assumption that we Remained.

It's now predicting an average of around 1.5%.

If that prediction is right (and it's been a bit on the optimistic side for the past 3 years) then by 2026, we'll have lost something like £7-800bn of economic output. That's about £1.5bn a week.

Kind of puts the amount Johnson lied about into perspective doesn't it?

[wilts rover]

Come on TRB. You can't prosecute someone for being detached from reality.

The European Convention on Human Rights wouldn...oh...hang on!

Don't get me started on May. She has been almost criminally useless. Although the  "almost" is the critical bit. She is a hopeless failure as a PM, but we'd be getting in the area of Show Trials if she could in some way be prosecuted for her incompetence, rather than just sacked.

If the Johnson case isn't thrown out as soon as it goes to Crown Court, all bets will be off. I can only conclude that the Judge who decided it could proceed is a politically-motivated Remainer who is too blind to see the bigger picture.

I am sort of with you TRB. For a start I can't see why Gove and Cummings haven't also been cited as they are just as guilty as Johnson for coming up with and then publicising that claim. OK Johnson may have been the most high profile but if there is blame then surely all three should be culpable? To just charge Johnson seems vindictive rather than attempting to achieve justice.

However on the other side of the coin what May and other politicians routinely do is claim something they are unable to deliver. What Johnson (and Gove and Cummings) did was to claim something they knew to be untrue. Allegedly.

Thats why we have a legal system and its good to know that no-one is above it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

My understanding is that Johnson was the official head of Vote Leave and has overall responsibility. I might be wrong, but I recall reading that somewhere.

[selby]

  I would say that every MP that stood to be elected under either the labour or conservative manifesto pledge to respect the referendum result and have continually voted against it, and have  campaigned against it subsequently are all open to stand trial then.

[Herbert Anchovy]

According to the BBC yesterday, the UK was one of only 9 net contributors to the EU in 2017. We were the second largest net contributor after Germany with a contribution of 6.55 billion pounds. The other 18 countries took out more from the EU than they contributed. Our contribution equates to around 112 euro per person.

Seems you don't understand the club we currently belong to, like most leavers!  We actually gain far more than we contribute - as has been demonstrated numerous times.  But go on, keep believing the lies propagated by the likes of Farrage and the Daily Mail.  Oh, and please, don't complain when things get really bad when we ultimately leave the club, especially if it's with no deal.

NNK

Please don't try and drag me into a pissing contest. I was simply sharing some interesting information and in the interests of equilibrium I was also careful to point out how little our contribution is per person. If youd like to challenge or contradict my comments then please feel free but try and do it without being a smart arse. Oh, and don't EVER suggest that I base my views on those propagated by Farage or the Daily Mail or we will fall out. And for the record, I don't want a no deal.

[The Red Baron]

TRB

Problem with the "you can vote them out if they lie" line is that this is not about a General Election.

I assume you're not saying we should have a chance to revisit the Referendum because of this lie.

And if you're not, then where's the sanction, other than legal action?

BST

But the action has been taken against Johnson on the basis that he was a MP at the time of the Referendum. He didn't become a Minister of the Crown until after the Referendum when he was appointed Foreign Secretary. Presumably that is why they didn't go after Cummings.

Anyway, is an MP in a public office? The charge is usually used against corrupt police or prison officers. Someone tried to use it against John Prescott when he was Deputy PM (and a minister) but it was laughed out of court. (It was when he was caught shagging his secretary btw). If an MP holds an office of profit under the Crown he or she is supposed to resign (The Chiltern Hundreds etc.).

This is a politically motivated prosecution. I don't care for Johnson, but the motives of the Judge who allowed this to proceed need to be questioned.