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Well, yes

There are lies, damned lies and Boris Johnson’s weasel sums.

By no honest calculation can Britain’s net payment to the European Union be estimated as £350m a week. Nigel Farage admits it. So does the Daily Mail.

Even Johnson admits it. In his “glorious Brexit” essay in the Daily Telegraph last Friday the foreign secretary said that we would “take back control” of roughly £350m a week when we leave the EU.

Imagine, as is in fact roughly true, that we send £350 million a week off and half of that is spent back upon us. Leaving means that sure, our net position is half of the £350 million. But our control is over how the whole £350 million is spent now, isn’t it? Instead of the EU controlling how half of it is spent.

24 thoughts on “Well, yes”

  1. “The Guardian is a vile nest of innumerate liars.” is not really news, but it’s always fun.

    when I am dictator I shall ask Mr. Ecks to help me round up most of the Guardian commentariat for “re-education”.

  2. Fred Z- Um you’re not going be dictator for long once you give that guy a licence. Which would probably be a good thing, so we can all get back to uk where papers can say whatever it is there readership like them to say.

  3. You could argue that, as the rebate is not sent to the EU and then returned, a figure of £250m is actually what we’ll regain control of.

    The counter argument to this is that in our theoretical Eurofuture, the rebate could be lost, so the £350m figure is still valid.

    However, I don’t think Boris cares. He knows that it is important to get the amount EU membership costs us back in the conversation.

  4. Boris –or Doris as the sadly missed Ian B used to call him–Johnson is concernedonly with Boris.

    It maybe that he senses the end of the Remainiac cause because –esp after Drunckers brazen announcements of the plans for enhanced tyranny (the ones all the remain lie-squad said were fantasy or lies)–the mass has gone out of their movement. If so he now sees his chance to fix May’s crapwagon.

    God knows the bitch needs her wagon fixing but I would much rather see Breathe-Smogg in No 10 not Johnson.

    Blojo could be trusted not even so far as he could be thrown. He would betray anybody in any combination possible to advance himself.

  5. Nigel Lawson in Financial Times today, states our net contribution to the EU is £12.6bn in 2018-19. Divide by 52 and we get £242 million per week — while not £350 million, it is going in the right direction (it is 69% of the sum). If our true contribution is higher, then we are getting closer to the magic 350 (it implies a £18.2bn contribution).
    As Tim has stated, one of the reasons the EU is playing hardball about the “exit” fee is the loss of income from the UK leaving. At £100bn, this is a an 8 year multiple of our net contribution.
    Whether it is £350m or £242m, as a net contributor, we are paying out money we don’t receive back. So all-in-all we will be better off out than in from a fiscal perspective.

  6. Let’s face it, Boris’s £350m is something of a Trumpism. We know the figure’s suspect but are happy to go along with it for entertainment purposes, because it winds up the opposition.

  7. I always wondered if someone came up with the figure as a Xanatos gambit. Either the opposition had to leave the whopping figure floating there, or the opposition had to challenge it and go on record with an improved, but still unpalatable number. At which point you’d have had Gove and Boris saying “we can argue about the precise figure, but even using David Cameron’s own numbers, it’s still…”.

    And I love the fact that it used the NHS. Not “government spending”, but the blessed religion of the left.

  8. That;s been the really interesting thing – huge reports about how Boris was completely and totally wrong and lying but no mention whatsoever about what the right number should be.

    Even the chap they hauled onto the Today program made a huge fuss of all the things to be taken off the £350m but he still only got down to £200m per week absolute net. The telling bit was of course that that net figure was never actually mentioned. Bastards.

  9. Can’t any of the supposedly “intelligent” and “educated” remainers actually fucking read?

    Johnson said “take back control of £350 million”, which is absolutely correct. All the sophisms about “it’s only £242 million net” (or whatever the figure du jour is) miss the point that we notionally remit some £350million a week to the EU which then redirects some £100million back to the UK – to be used as directed by Brussels, ie is not under the UK’s control.

    When we stop paying we get the £250million that previously stayed with the EU and control over where the £100million that they so generously distibute back to us is spent. Sum total is therefore control over £350million.

    It’s not even junior-school arithmetic FFS!

  10. Pogo, you are absolutely correct.

    But what makes the case even worse is that the time value of money is lost with this argument. Remember the rebate is paid a year in arrears. In a low-interest environment, it is a loss of say 1 %, but at the time of the original negotiations, it must have amounted to more than 5%. I am sure the smirking Bruxelles Mandarins gave each other a thumbs-up when Thatcher signed that deal, we are so smart and clever.

  11. The Leave liars often use the figure net of the rebate to pretend it is actually net. Taking both the rebate and the UK spending ( most of which the liars have promised to duplicate) we paid £165m per week and that aint £350m.
    I think you have to bear in mind that the Leave vote was wildly skewed to the old and poorly educated almost none which could spell single market, never mind decide to leave it, and this lie was more seriously than being untrue in its own terms
    It implied and allowed the assumption that the arithmetic effect of leaving EU was the only one and the tragic fact is that 90% of Leave voters believed that would be better off .

    These tragic dupes are already finding out the truth as prices go up ,interest rates follow and growth lags behind the EU . Even the most ridiculous Brexut Lord Haw Haws and only saying we can recover relatively quickly ( I am thinking of Lillico)
    The treasury is stalling on quantifying the Brexit bill but they will have to soon and when they do I would like it converted into unnecessary deaths due to cuts in the NHS and I would like that fat clueless fraud Johnson to accept a rolled up copy into his fundament .

  12. MC is correct on this one: circa £350m per week gross, £250m per week after rebate, £150m ish net. HMG can spend the rebate on whatever it pleases as it gets deducted from the following year’s gross contribution; the difference between gross less rebate and net is under EU control.

  13. @newmania… Leave vote was wildly skewed to the old and poorly educated almost none which could spell single market, never mind decide to leave it,

    In the mindset of deranged idiots such as yourself, “poorly educated” equates to “not having a 3rd class degree in Coronation Street Studies from the University of Steeple Bumstead” or similar fount of knowledge. This “advantage” is not one possessed by the older generation as only a relatively small percentage of us attended real universities achieving real degrees, whereas the rest ended up with “A” Levels that were academically miles ahead of many present-day degrees, or “O” Levels which ran them a close second. There were also HNCs and HNDs which are ignored in terms of tertiary education nowadays. Net result is that although it appears that we oldies are the first generation in recent history to be better educated, more literate and numerate than our grandchildren, we are “uneducated”.

    And you, genius of this parish (it’s said that “the boundariy between madness and genius is very small” – and I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt) have failed dismally in Comprehension – as I rather laboured above.

  14. Violet Elizabeth Newremainiac, yet it was the credentialed but poorly educated and wilfully blind 48% that were so convinced that the nice Mr Juncker didn’t want a politically integrated European project, nor did he want a Federal States of Europe and certainly didn’t want a single European Army…or at least until the other day, that is.

    Tell you what, you give me 350 quid a week and I’ll spend 185 quid on you. I won’t tell you what I’m going to spend it on but I’ll spend it anyway and you’ll just have to like it or lump it. Second thoughts, just give me 165 quid a week and I’ll do with it as I please. Fair?

  15. ..well that is in the context of the £14/15 ,000 to scale we give to the government its just over 1`% of spending, so while you are getting your knickers in a twist about a rounding error how about this

    You and all the freaking morons who voted to be poor. You pay my Brexit bill , you take a chance with your job and you go and live in some all white food rationed bad teeth theme park form the 1950s and let the rest of us get on with making a living

    Why TF am I paying for your stupidity ?

    Why why why why and who the f thougt it was a good idea to consult the readreship of the Sun about our trading arrangements , you might as well ask a fucking baboon!11

  16. you might as well ask a fucking baboon!11

    Violet Elizabeth Newremainiac-Baboon, what should we do about those trading arrangements then?

  17. I can almost feel the spittle as Rumpelstiltzmania stamps his tiny feet and headbuts the keyboard trying to make words

  18. The £350 million per week is explicitly incorrect.

    Theoretical Gross Payment = £350 million per week.
    Less Thatcher Rebate (deducted before payment to EU) = £240 mn per week actual gross.
    EU spend on UK = c £100 mn per week gives c. £140 mn per week net.

    The point of the (knowingly false) £350 mn per week claim was always to get the opposing side to dispute it, as the public would hear “however many hundred million per week” and that’s all the same number as far as the human brain is concerned. (cf President Johnson claiming something outrageous about his opponent during an early Senate race and explaining to an aide, “Yes, I know it’s untrue, I just want to make the bastard deny it”).

    Boris is either telling an untruth or confused – the rebate monies have always been put straight back in the general pot and we’ve always had full control of that money.

  19. @Newmania – I can give you the names of 10 non-EU territories in Northern and Western Europe. Can you name the one which is regarded as poor?
    Ah, but the UK is a big country, we need to have a seat at the table making the regulations for other countries.
    Well the people on here don’t want that seat – they don’t want to have more say over what Czechs can smoke, park, port, or pay for than they do themselves.
    We want to take away control. But taking it back is a good start.

  20. ” who the f thougt it was a good idea to consult the readreship of the Sun about our trading arrangements”

    The elitism is strong here today. And the alcohol too judging by the spelling and judgment which are weak. As for “our” trading arrangements, who is this we white man? Newmaniac, go ahead and trade with whoever is willing to put up with your attitude and language.

    Newmaniac is firmly with King John on the role of the lesser people.

    Newmania also ignores Pogo’s point: “to be used as directed by Brussels”. Perhaps Newmania can post a spittle flecked summary of which of the Brussels mandated expenditures he (or she, I dunno) likes best?

    I’m a colonial so I lost track of whether the straight bananas are mandatory or forbidden. How many banana curvature inspectors will become unemployed on Brexit at what savings to the treasury?

  21. Newfacepainter-You lost son –and you will do what we fucking tell you to or fuck off to join your lovely EU buddies.

    They can see a dumb cunt at a distance so you would likely have to pay for your own enslavement upon re-joining them. Why not –we have been doing since 1973.

    Speaking for myself I’d enjoy your howls as your kids/ grandkids get conscripted into some EU shitshow army and run over by a beard-boy import (put in the Army to give ’em a job) who can’t master reverse gear on a tank.

  22. @Pogo, September 19, 2017 at 11:12 am
    Can’t any of the supposedly “intelligent” and “educated” remainers actually fucking read?

    It’s a case of won’t not can’t.

    Johnson said “take back control of £350 million”, which is absolutely correct. All the sophisms about “it’s only £242 million net” (or whatever the figure du jour is) miss the point that we notionally remit some £350million a week to the EU which then redirects some £100million back to the UK – to be used as directed by Brussels, ie is not under the UK’s control.

    Also worth remembering, most EU Funded projects* in UK have to be matched £ for £ by UK Public sector contribution. Effectively, we pay the entire cost of things we may not need or want.

    Thus, we are taking back control of £350 million + 50% of what EU spends in UK; over £400 million per day.

    *eg many new museums and arts things very few use.

  23. @Pcar, September 19, 2017 at 8:11 pm,

    Nope, we don’t [i]”notionally remit some £350million a week to the EU which then redirects some £100million back to the UK – to be used as directed by Brussels, ie is not under the UK’s control.”[/i]

    That’s factually incorrect.

    We remit some [b]£240 million or thereabouts to the EU, which then redirects some £100 million back to the UK to be used as directed by Brussels.[/b]

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