Does the EU really cost the UK £350m a week?
Could Turkey really join the EU by 2020?
Will staying in EU really lead to an influx equal to Scottish population?
From today’s Guardian front page.
The answers are Yes, No, No.
Meaning that only two are a violation.
Does it really make much difference whether Turkey joins the EU or not, given that Europe has no intention of securing its borders? And the answer to that, as per Betteridge is “no”.
I don’t follow you Tim. Betteridge’s law says that the answer to question headlines is ‘No’.
And the answer to the first question is ‘No’ too. Why do brexiters persist in lying about this? The real numbers are big enough.
“And the answer to the first question is ‘No’ too. Why do brexiters persist in lying about this? The real numbers are big enough.”
Because as we have discovered in Scotland due to the lying SNP, if you repeat something often and loudly enough, it becomes a fact for a great many people – a bit like Murphy’s tax gap numbers.
As for the third question, let’s extrapolate from current trends. Latest net migration figure is 333,000 per year. Therefore by 2030 some five million people will have arrived.
Past performance is no guarantee of future returns though. The world population continues to rise rapidly, so all things equal we can expect more people trying to enter the UK, not fewer.
Social Justice Warrior said: “And the answer to the first question is ‘No’ too. Why do brexiters persist in lying about this? The real numbers are big enough.”
If it were that clear cut the UK Stats Authority wouldn’t have said Vote Leave are being “potentially misleading” but put it more strongly.
VL are quoting what the government refers to as ‘gross contributions’. This isn’t our net contribution but as far as I can tell it is what is actually paid. The rebate is paid in arrears in the opposite direction*. It’s daft as you’d think we could just knock off the rebate from what we send but seemingly this isn’t the case.
* Going by the farrago over the sudden £1.7bn bill that Osborne said we’d only pay half but was in fact paid in full knowing we’ll get half back later.
as far as I can tell it is what is actually paid
As far as I can tell the rebate is deducted before payment.
if you repeat something often and loudly enough, it becomes a fact
You want people to vote for brexit because they believe a lie?
It’s quite wrong to use net figures to define our contribution to the EU. If someone stole £900 from you and used it to buy you a new sofa, would you say “well, that’s OK then, I haven’t really lost anything”, or would you feel that you might have spent the money better on something you actually wanted (and anyway you could have bought the same sofa for half the price)? And £900 is the amount every household in the UK spends on EU membership every year.
Thing is the fees to be the member of the club are either good value or not. And that’s a really difficult calculation in the context of this kind of club. Even if the club is run by scoundrels and scum who feather their own nests before thinking of their duties to the members, you still can choose if the subscription is value or not. In a few weeks time everyone gets just that choice.
While the graft and fraud – like corruption in British governance – should be minimised and the guilty slung out of office and into prison, Tim has made valid points before about the costs of ensuring _total_ compliance and zero fraud outweighing the benefits of elimination. The costs of domestic tax fraud in cash businesses probably is far greater than that we lose to our lords and masters, but I guess that’s British, therefore In Ordnung.
‘As far as I can tell the rebate is deducted before payment.’
From the link – ‘a final calculation of the rebate in respect of 2015 will take place in 2019.’
These statements seem hard to square.
And £900 is the amount every household in the UK spends on EU membership every year.
Rubbish.
UK contribution to the EU before rebate: £18bn
UK contribution to the EU after rebate: £13bn
UK contribution to the EU net of money they pay our farmers etc: 8.5bn
You might additionally subtract money the EU spends in the private sector in the UK. The latest figure was £1.4bn annually.
The £350m/week number is 18bn/52. That’s wrong, because the amount we send to the EU is actually 13bn; the non-lying number is £250m/week
£900/household/year is a wild exaggeration from I know not where. The correct amount is about £13bn/27m = £480 per household.
Note that both these numbers are gross – not including EU payments to farmers etc in the UK.
And they’re both a substantial amount of money. The Brexit campaign could make an argument worth listening to on the basis of the real numbers. When it lies about them it damages its own argument.
Hokkay, so, a billion pounds a month. you’re right, Paul, that is a lot of money. I think i shall vote Brexit, then.
E Lud
So it’s ok to make numbers up then?
If it were Murphy, you’d all be sharing bodily fluids by now.
@SJW
You’re correct if you use net figures, wrong if you use gross ones. But the net figures are the misleading ones, because they assume that the EU can make better choices about what to spend our money on than we can; and spend it more efficiently. Which was rather the point of my comment, had you bothered to read it.
CM: I read your comment. £13bn is the gross amount of money the UK sends the EU each year.
Arnald, though I’m fully persuaded of Murphy’s Widmerpooleish qualities, you’ll find few or no examples of me on here ragging on him.
And no, it’s no ok to make up data, although the error, if it is one, is hardly worth arguing about.
In truth, my last comment was made merely to amuse myself.
I suppose we should subtract all the pensions they pay to the Kinnocks and Mandelsons, too. Just to be absolutely accurate.
“And that’s a really difficult calculation in the context of this kind of club.”
To judge by the disgracefully blood-curdling threats issued from the start, it’s not a club to belong to, it’s a club the Commission is wielding.