Boris’ £350 Million A Week
By Paul Homewood
As there has been some discussion about the legal case being brought against Boris Johnson, about his supposed “lie” that £350m is sent by the UK to the EU, I thought I would publish what the OBR is officially saying in their latest Fiscal Outlook.
The figures below are based on what they call a “no referendum” counterfactual basis (in other words what the figures will be if we don’t leave):
https://obr.uk/efo/economic-fiscal-outlook-march-2019/
Just to zoom in on the current year, the bottom line shows a gross contribution of £16.1bn. It must be noted though that this “gross” figure already has the UK rebate deducted from it, so it is not gross at all.
£16.1bn of course equates to £310m a week, and this is due to rise to £16.9bn next year.
Just to clarify, “Traditional Own Resources” are customs duties, which we collect and then hand over to the EU as we are part of the Customs Union.
“Public Sector Receipts” refer to EU funded projects in the UK.
Regardless of the facts of this particular case, the idea that a judge should determine what a politician can or cannot say when electioneering is truly frightening, and I am astonished anybody could support such an idea.
How much longer would it be before the media is similarly gagged, not to mention we simple bloggers?
FOOTNOTE
The argument around the £350m a week centres around the UK Rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher.
According to Michael Gove, when he was interviewed on the BBC in May 2016, "The rebate is not in any treaty. The rebate can be whittled away."
George Osborne also stated in the House of Commons in 2014 that the rebate was discretionary.
This goes to the heart of the debate around regaining control of our payments to the EU.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
From: Messrs Shaf, Tem, Right & Proper.
Dear Mr Paul Homewood.
We shall be filing a writ shortly in the High Court on behalf of the stupid, misguided, criminally insane and self-interested to insist that you stop publishing facts and, in particular, numbers.
It is well known that such details confuse the general puic causing angst and potentially political turmoil.
Yes, Paul….you must be very high on their list.
Never mind, we’ll man the barricades in your defence!
Carry on regardless.
Seriously though, that such a silly and vexatious case has got as far as it has is a real worry for anyone concerned about the impartiality of our Legal System.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
Is it not about time there were rules upon what lies, distortions and manipulations of facts that politicians can throw at the public in order to gain election or go to war? (Weapons of mass destruction springs to mind).
Indeed. nearly the whole House of Commons declared a ‘climate catastrophe’ last month. as this is a blatant lie i believe the HoC en bloc should be prosecuted for lying to the public.
To be honest it is better to not allow that in office, but to have MP’s easily deselected by their constiuents after a local referendum, and/or have yearly Parliaments where they are out of office then allow them to be prosecuted for malfeseance corruption etc. Democracy must have precidence over Law because the Law can not only be an ass but a tool of tyranny itself since you can make anything at all ‘legal’ without once having the public vote on it and even if they did, the public in a Democracy is allowed to change its mind. Rule of law is a wet dream of the legal profession which belongs withing the corporate Eu, rule by consent.
Hi David, you are forgetting that it is the politicians who draft and enable the laws in the first place, whether the general public agrees with them or not.
My point is that politicians seem to believe that they can spout out anything, true or not whilst no other member of society can `sell´ a product on a lie without some form of penalty. Examples: Timeshare touts, Financial Advisors, Estate Agents…even RyanAir has to honour their promises!
Going back, the thought that politicians would lie cheat steal etc, never entered the minds of our ancestors, or those political reform demands would have been much broader and deeper. – and less inclusive, i.e. the age of majority would have gone up, immigrants would be denied representation & voting qualified by national service which tends to happen in the most Democratic nations since they wish to remain that way(if you earned your vote you will fight for it and your country), along with OHCID monitoring of the process because its a long way from the poll station to the counting room and bans on postal fauds or me coming in with my dads card and voting twice, stopped in india by indelible dyes on the hands.
By and large, behaviours and petty frauds are tolerated until the relationship has become unconsionable, Europe Tusk & Co have not understood the current national mood, they think the ycan get away with anything if they delay or stonewall enough, May has mental health issues and should have been removed whilst home secretary and not posted above that point, few if any will be allowed to continue in their chosen professions, and with all the lawsuits against the politicians ongoing there is ample chance a Brexit party will seek damages against prior politicians and the NGO’s/MSM/Stars since none of them would be of any use to it, I doubt the worlds so kind as such things are done on principle, they have incurred vast costs.
I’ve lost count of the number of times, since 2016, that idiotic, bad loser remoaners have told me I voted Leave because of a big red bus. I didn’t. I wasn’t even aware of a red bus until after the referendum, when disgruntled sore loser remainers started moaning about it. They have become obsessed with it ever since and have convinced themselves that – along with the Russians – it lost them the referendum on remaining in their beloved EU. Hence I’m sure they think that by taking Boris to court to prove that he ‘lied’ about the £350m, they will get more ammunition with which to reverse the result of the largest national democratic vote the UK has ever had – because they didn’t like the result.
There was only the one and quite possibly the only time it was seen at all was on the newspaper articles slating the figures. We forget that the EU budget is a 7 year budget so the figures should include the loss of the rebate and not listed the average 1-2 billion a year we are fined by the EU for Environmental taxation, such as its clean air which it itself has causd by exporting Frances pollution to England, Forcing the UK to allow some 40% of its road traffic which is not from the UK MOT’ed to come from Europe, its two biggest companies were VW and BMW which cheated on theri emissions tests(and not fined in the EU) and last but not least counting wood burning as carbon neutral so every green(thinking) has installed a wood stove.
The figure of £350m is an underestimate according to the Spectator. ‘Gross payment to Brussels: £18.9 billion a year, or £363 million a week.’
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/10/the-350m-line-on-the-brexit-bus-was-wrong-the-real-figure-is-higher/?fbclid=IwAR37bjeARVCqHvPzZ8ECm19ViyooZ_wEOSGDHIlQnYPk8arthNndY8JVH3Q
It should also be noted that there is another factor that is very important and that nobody debates. It is that the EU decides whether the UK gets a rebate and how much. It is not up to UK. Rebates (the UK is not the only country to get one) are reviewed periodically and must be agreed by all. So strictly speaking, the UK’s liability is the gross not net figure.
It is certainly very worrying that judges are involved in this, as they are mostly biased in favour of the EU – just like the Electoral Commission is.
The UK’s liability for the EU’s debt is joint and several, and has no cap at all beyond our bankruptcy as a nation.
Next case m’lord: Climate Change the Facts.
The redbate ends in 2021 as does the £ which is replaced by the Euro, opt outs negotiated by John Major in 1992 were delayed opt ins.
The ONS figures for 2014 — which have to be the ones that Johnson was relying on — show the UK’s gross contribution as ~£350 million a week. (I’m relying on the graph and the Mk1 eyeball but it matches the figure Johnson quoted). The net contribution (ie with only the rebate taken off though the EU and some others try — falsely — to discount money spent on EU projects in the UK), using the same graph and the same eyeball, is ~£275 million a week.
There is no point in trying to defend Johnson by quoting figures he cannot have had available because they didn’t exist at the time. He lied! Whether that is a matter for criminal charges is another question.
His lie was compounded (not by him) with a further lie from his fan club that a) the rebate is money returned to the UK; not true, it never goes to the EU in the first place, and b) we have no control over how that money is spent; also not true, the EU does not dictate how we spend our own money.
While we’re at it, the UK and Denmark have permanent opt-outs from the euro; it is not true that we would have to join in 2021. https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-countries-euro-2020/
The rebate is not time-limited. We receive that rebate for as long as we continue to be members of the EU. The question of “losing” the rebate only relates to what might happen if we drag this process out beyond the end of next year. Which God forbid!
Guenther Oettinger has stated the UK loses its rebate in 2020 regardless, and yes it was part of the negotiations John Major had in the Masstericht treaty along with ALL states having to adpot the Euro by 2021.
Interestingly Boris was not the only one to use that figure!
Michael Gove made exactly the same claim on the BBC in May 2016:
“What’s a fact is that we give more than £350million to the European Union and hand over control of that money to the European Union every week.
“That is a fact.”
Gove also said “”The rebate is not in any treaty. The rebate can be whittled away.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/michael-goves-eu-facts-350-7924412
I wonder why he is not hauled off to court as well!
He sold his soul to the 1922 comittee and gave a speech cutting off the Leave campaigns NO Deal Brexit for negotiations right after the 2016 result with Boris in the background, It was rapidly erased from the media but I had a snippet, apparently we are not a Conservative and Unionist country but Liberal Progressive one according to Gove.
“the EU does not dictate how we spend our own money”, but Regional Development Funds, as in Wales, have to be approved in line with objectives agreed by the European Commission.
Once it goes to the EU it is not longer ‘our’ money it is EU money some of which gets to be spent in the UK on EU projects, grante CAP etc.
“using the same graph and the same eyeball, is ~£275 million a week.”
whatever the figure maybe.
That figure is still eye wateringly £275 mill too much, is it not Micheal?
god forbid Michael – humble apols.
As for lying, you have to add in our fines and that money going into the EU is EU spending even if it is in the UK and not UK spending, therefore is going onto projects which compete with the national interest and are not complementary to it, as in BBC funding, CAP subsidies to farmers in East Anglia to grow grain only 30% of which can come to harvest because the UK can only grow Spelt as a crop with reliability, along with oats. Subsidies are for continental Wheats for 45 flour & 55. Some of the worst are subsides to grow nothing, or to throw fish back and mostly it isspent on pro EU propoganda projects your council has to wave an EU flag for for all time or Green propoganda as in giving to the BBC.
Lets just say the Ball park figure was right for 2019 but not in 2016 and it was in the context of a 7 year budget and Article 50.
The ONS Pink Book for 2016 (the version that was current when the bus was decorated) clearly shows the total debit to the EU was £19.593Bn which equates to a tad over £375M per week. This makes the claim on the bus look conservative.
The same document also showed the figure for all previous 10 years, showing it growing from around £13Bn in 2005.
The Pink Book for the following year (2017) shows the figure for 2016 at £13.885Bn and still shows the values for the previous years.
Now, I would have expected the figure for 2015 to be the same as in the previous years book. No. It has now been reduced by over £4Bn to £14.804Bn!
Similarly all previous years have also been reduced by about the same amount, giving 2005 as £9.458Bn.
I am not an accountant or statistician, but this looks very suspicious to me.
So anyone referring to the bus figure in any but the contemporaneous Pink Book would be forgiven for thinking that it was exaggerated by some £92M.
I wonder if this is really what has happened, and that the debate between gross and net figures is a post-rationalisation of this fundamental mistake.
It also begs the question as to whether the value change by the ONS was a deliberate muddying of the waters.
The spreadsheets are available for anyone to check, simply Google ONS Pink Book and the year you are interested in.
+1
Mike Jackson:
The EU rebate is paid a year in arrears, after it has been calculated. Therefore it spends a year in their accounts before they kindly deduct it off what we owe them currently.
If Michael Gove is hauled off to Court over this £350m per week thing then the whole of the ONS and the BBC will have to charged and tried as well.
The BBC checked the claim at the time and the ONS deal naturally with Government expenditure and have since confirmed the £350m (actually £361m but that is a tiny difference) was paid throughout 2014/15.
And let’s be clear, as the £39 billion bill shows, our contributions to the EU go way beyond the budget contributions and tax/customs amounts.
We must add in the EU customs Fraud of the UK £2.4 Billion, £300 million for London air pollution(remedial measures will cost the taxpayers over £3.5 billion) My favourite is counting the immoral earnings of Britains prostitutes as part of the GDP and fining the UK for not collecting VAT on them. Yes we have europe wide slave and prostitution rackets from mafias and we must now count them as official businesses.
And how is campaigning “in public office”? The taxpayer isn’t funding it.
To get an inkling of the fraud and waste that permeates the EU just dip into Olly Figg’s book: Europe on 387 million euros a day. Available free as a pdf:
https://bit.ly/2GgCPOL
or can be bought as a paperback. I just wish he would update his book.
It’s preposterous, and a political action (just like climate litigation).
No one could ever open their mouth and speak off the cuff again without fear of technically being inaccurate and subsequently being accused of lying, if this succeeds.
It’s also absurd to believe that anyone (apart from remainers mostly retrospectively) took the figure as a cast iron fact. It was just an example of how we should have the right to prioritize our own tax receipt spending.
The claim will have been made with no dishonest intent and with use of information available at the time and presented as a ‘sales pitch’, mere sales puff. The figure quoted was of the right order if not exact to the pound.
e.g. If advertising a car for sale the law recognizes that the language will obviously be ‘rose tinted’ and a buyer should take it with a pinch of salt, but at the same time it must not be a deliberate fraudulent representation – ‘superb condition’ means nothing extraordinarily incommensurate with age etc., it does not mean 100% perfect.
The chances of proving that Boris willfully abused the public trust is zero.
Actually that depends upon the Judge, with the added problem that as in BAFF V’s CAFFUK we have a Judiciary ignoring the fact the litigant has no standing(i.e. was not the wronged party), and has sued as an org rather than an individual(The org was formed after 2017), the Org has crowd funded its money to sue and is a limited liability company therefore those having shares will have little to no liability for costs if they lose yet the individual Boris Johnson can have his entire life career ruined and incurr costs + damages. And has also sued the Boris who used the Bus as part of the campaign rather than the two people in Charge Mark Elliot and Dominic Cummings – i.e. the Vote Leave directors. Pre tests are being ignored by the court system, which are in the tick boxes, are you filing suit against the right person and are you the valid litigant.
We are also getting claims by remain agitants that it is a ‘Crime’ which it is absolutely not, it is a civil action for damages by what is effectively a block of wood or legal not lawful entity Judiciary has seen fit to given human rights too such as the right to a defense or representation without having a parliamentary act first whcih is an abuse of power, process and the means the corptocracy rules this country. It has infinite power with its wealth in the courtroom, it HAS the Judiciary to represent corporate interests and no liability because it can simply change its name, delay or appeal decisions, and they dont get to be appealed. At which point we must also ask why we have ‘Judges’ since there is no parliamentary act appointing officials to courts since the magna carta allowed only trials by 12 of your peers.
When a party cannot meet the liabilities and pay costs, don’t the court usually insists that money is underwritten or a sum put into an Escrow account?
You got me there since my experience is the judiciary only used the lack of underwritining of costs in a case as his own cross examination against the party he has already decided against(which decided not to turn up), or else it would be impossible for for example a child to take an adult to court for damages. As in you have a bent Judge since cross examination is done by the defense therefore is usually conjecture, how someone meet costs is up to them, to demand they can pay the infinite possible awards/costs against them during a case is buying justice or in fact coercion. You cant afford to proceed, prove to me you can is not something you want to go through as in the Judge has taken the side with the most money.
Bottomline there is little difference between
: number X which is a lot of money
: number Y which is a lot of money
AFAIK using number Y is a Trump like trick, cos it forced media to talk about the issue
They thought they were talking about the issue of using a gross figure and not net
But the point is it forced them to talk about the issue
If the Red Bus had £250m the media , would have rarely talked about the issue
I couldn’t care less what was posted on the side of a bus. I never believe anything that comes out of the mouth of a politician or, for that matter, the mouth of a MSM spokesperson. In fact my default reaction is to ALWAYS assume they are lying or, at the very least, have no understanding of the topic in question.
That said, if this legal case against Boris Johnson proceeds, it could have a massive effect on future political campaigns. I can imagine any politician answering any question with “I will have to consult my legal team and get back to you…”
I agree with Norman Reeley (June 2nd, 0850 am) that it would be great to have restrictions placed on political campaigners in order to prevent lies but, lets face it, that’s what politicians do so it would be like pushing back against the tide.
The best advice to voters is to “do your own research”!
This is how the left works against Trump in the US. Whatever the policy, someone throws a writ at it and there is always a compliant judge to do the dirty.
dennis you are completely right. No fair minded and neutral judge would have taken this on. It’s just like the Gina Miller case vs Democracy, where the judge found against democracy and in her favour. I blame her and that judge for most of the reason our politics is in such a mess and that Brexit has not been delivered.
There is some interesting information on Marcus Ball, the instigator of the legal action, here on an “extreme right wing populist shortly-to-be-banned-from-the-internet” site.
https://order-order.com/people/marcus-j-ball/
Paul those 2 screenshots are too small to read
unless I boost the browser to 150% view
I can see that there is a space before the numbers column, so I thought about creating a new image.
However that chart 4.11 isn’t in the master PDF so it must be in one of the XL files
and then when I zoom your image, for some reason the letters are out of focus.
BTW what’s the new weekly figure without the rebate deducted ?
£21.1bn for this year, excl rebate, = £403m/wk
I’ve also deleted the two historical columns now, so the table should be big enough to read now.
“How much longer would it be before the media is similarly gagged …”
Inasmuch as the media is frequently ‘instructed’ by the government with regard to what it actually prints, I believe in this sense that the media is already ‘gagged’.
My accountancy skills are very limited, but it seems that our contribution to Brussels for imports from outside the EU are not included.
I understand that our tax-pay to Brussels is between £ 2 and £3b / year.
Should this properly be considered as part of our payments as EU members?
That’s the Traditional Own Resources column
Thanks for that Paul – I wouldn’t have known where to find the data
The irony is that it is all on the EU’s own web-site. Had all the Remain voters who are bothered by this £350m p/wk poster bothered to check, they could have found the Budget contribution for each country there.
How about suing the Chancellor, Carney of the BOE, the IMF who all damaged our economy with their statements and every single remainer who says that “No Deal” is a disaster and falling off a precipice without any actual facts to prove it.
The problem is crown immunity has been granted to those individuals and it is also given to the likes of the Environment Agency a private company which until 2014 did not have it and nobody thought to sue it or its Directors for damages when it abandoned dredging causing flooding 10 years later. Crown immunity means you simply get laughed at.
Surely the lie is that we could spend the money on the NHS instead. Unfortunately that is not the case as this explains.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86016
At best (& without a “divorce settlement) we might be left with £2m
Of course, the other worrying issue is why it was not ridiculed by the media at the time!All the data was in the public domain at the time
Nobody suggested the money could be spent on the NHS straightaway.
But the OBR figures confirm that the money is quickly freed up after 2021/22.
For instance, by 2024/5, our payments to the EU are only £1.3bn (per the May deal).
Thereafter they quickly go down to £0.1bn a year .(See Table 4.16)
https://obr.uk/efo/economic-fiscal-outlook-march-2019/
The NHS is at best a bucket with a hole in it and at the moment a sieve where what you pour in pours out in around £56 billions in compensation to £120 billion in NI contributions. It has a staff problem, since though I recall in the Labour administration many demonstration for more and more funding, when it got it then funding went into wages, pensions, PFI which schemes which mushroomed in massive deficits and pay offs in 2004-2007 when 14,000 staff were made redundant to cost cut becuase of the mushrooming spending and were then replaced by agency staff in the LIB/Con government of Cameron from worldwide but largely the EU who are responsible for the compensation claims. If I was to pour money into the service, It would go into a new generation of mental health sanatorium & OAP hospitals where my Grandfather used to work, they were all closed by Margret Thatcher for no care in the community where they stripped you of your home and assets or allowed the mentally ill to stay on the street.
Hi,
This may already have been noted but I think the reference document used originally for the £350m figure was the “UK Balance of Payments, the pink book 2016. In that document table 9.9 “UK official transactions with institutions of the EU” clearly shows total debits of £19,107m which is £367m per week for the year 2014. The 2015 figure was £376 per week. They changed the format in the 2017 pink book to include the rebate (identified in the document as the “Fontainebleau abatement”) as a negative debit.
What about the lie that, after the referendum, the government would abide by the result?
The Government can only be sued by an individual aka Gina Miller who sued May/HM Gov successfully in 2016 so that Parliament had the right to vote on article 50, this would also have been confirmed by 2015 legislation where parliament passed a bill confirming only it hat the right to create treaities when in June David Cameron made a secret Bilateral one with France. and told the commons about it through his defense secratery Fox on the morning of signing – In brief you can sue the government – the executive – on belhalf of your representatives becuase they cannot ovverule Parliament but as the English Democrts are about to find out to all our costs you cannot as an Org or individual take HM government to court to overrule Parliament even if it is breaking the law with Gina Miller because its soverign. They are also taking HM gov to court in the litigation but the problem being Parliament in its withdrawl Bill 2018 which passed and went through the queens speech forbid leaving with No Deal, even though in 2017 it voted for no deal and repealed the EEC treaty. The court will rule in favour of Parliament.
Aint those Remoaners litigous?
Paul, I think we should stay focused on climate. The last thing we want the chattering classes doing is to associate AGW opposition with Conservatism. That would marginalise your message and negate a lot of your good work. This is also a time when there is a growing opposition to identity politics and direct action (a great source of opposition to our stance and a cesspit of misinformation). If we stick to the facts I think that we stand more chance of gaining influence. There is nothing quite like being trusted. In the coming age of real politics and real government you might as end up as an expert witness, an authority on the side of fracking and so many other good causes. Stay true to your principals and don’t be deflected.
The climate hoax lists will no doubt be exempt from any scrutiny
‘Misspeakings’ were made on both sides of the argument and are regularly made by all politicians (especially Diane Abbott). How ludicrous would it be if they were to become matters for litigation? I am sure the idea would be promoted by those in the legal profession which may well be why this totally poitically-motivated action has been allowed to proceed.
Where would it end? Let’s sue Mrs May and the promoters of all the green blob lies.
In the UK there is Common Law supposedly the superior law as the queen gives an oath every year to uphold it as as such.
There is also Naval Law and law of the land and other laws as well as statue laws as passed by Parliament (notionally but not in practice this is law by consent. so you need to consent to it).
In UK law you actions are supposed to be presumed innocent unless it can be proved you have broken a law.
But European law is Napoleonic so you are presumed to be guilty unless you can prove you have not broken the law.
As with all laws what is important is the Force of the law. That is what can be enforced.
Most laws are never enforced and the few that are enforced are done so on only on rare occasions on an arbitrary basis (Or when there is some powerful interest that they should be enforced or ignored)
When laws are enforced they may be given publicity as a warning to all to obey the law.
It is not practical on many levels to enforce the laws.
The threat of enforcement is used so that people will comply.
If you have ever travelled on a motor way you will have seen many people braking the speed limit but only a few will be fined.
Any powerful group will write rules to protect themselves. Threatening and on occasion enforcing those rules to maintain there power.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan also said on the final BBC referendum debate (watched by millions) that “10% of NHS staff are from the EU) [the actual figure at the time was closer to 5%] and that “the majority of the UK’s trade is with the EU” [a BBC graphic literally above his head on a massive screen said it was 45% at the time, sourced to UK government statistics]
I presume he will be hauled into court for his false claims to large swathes of the electorate?
Well that figures wrong in that 90% of Staff are from the EU and 10% from Commonwealth countries, the UK was in the EU so ALL its staff therefore come from it by default. the important figure is that the NHS is the countries biggest employer and laid off some 9000 Nurses 2009 – 2019 and 14,000 up to 2008 in Gordon Browns premiership, the positions went to agencies some of those formerstaff were rehired at 1.5x that rate or more (recieving much less in their pay packet of course).
Same thing with the EU trade, pre 1972 it was some 90% UK to 10% EU as we imported much of what the EU wanted to sell us from the US and Commonwealth, now it is the exact reverse, however that 45% is right in that the trade is with the EU, it just means the continent is protected against our former trade partners cheaper prices and the whole trade even though it is crippling the country is 45% of our trade which we can afford to lose overall, since the only place affected is the CIty of London which accounts for the lions share of that 10%, i.e. financial piracy, accountancy, shell companies and tax evasion.