User:JamJamSvn/sandbox10: Difference between revisions

The Vote Leave campaign used a large red battle bus in the lead up to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. A decal on the side of the bus made the false claim and following pledge that "We send the EU £350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead."^[1] The £350 million figure, conceived by Vote Leave campaign leader Dominic Cummings,^[2] was disputed by the UK Statistics Authority and Institute for Fiscal Studies as well as other media, though Vote Leave continued to stand by the figure,^[3] and the bus continued to be featured in news media.^[1] Cummings has credited the words on the bus for the Leave campaign's victory, and 42 percent of people who had heard of the claim still believed it was true by 2018.

The bus was manufactured by German company Neoplan, with its production beginning in Poland and finishing in Germany.^[4] It cost £400,000 to purchase.^[5]

Gisela Stuart, co-chair of Vote Leave, repeated the claim from the bus on BBC Radio 4 on 15 April 2016. This was again disputed by BBC News.^[6]

On 11 May 2016, the bus began a tour of the United Kingdom, beginning its tour in Truro, Cornwall. There, Boris Johnson stood on the steps of the bus and waved a Cornish pasty, which received criticism as the pasty was protected by the EU's Protected Geographical Indication rules, meaning it could not be made anywhere other than Cornwall while being named as such, though the Leave campaign stated these protections would remain in force.^[4] The bus then set off for Dorset.^[5] Sky News reported on the origin of the bus in the European mainland the same day,^[4] leading some critics to state the bus was an example of hypocrisy from the Vote Leave campaign.^{[citation needed]} The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign^[7] also stated that if the UK were not in the EU at the time, the bus would have cost £456,000, more than its actual £400,000 price,^[5] due to increased tariffs.^[4] Rob Oxley, Leave campaign media director, replied that "Of course it’s a German bus. We want it to run on time", and that Germany would still sell their buses to the UK if it left the EU.^[4]

On 18 July 2016, The Daily Telegraph reported that Greenpeace had acquired the bus and parked it outside the Houses of Parliament, "rebranding" the text with the words "time for truth" and the hashtag "#comeclean" and stating that it was "covering up the bold-faced lie" with "messages of hope". Greenpeace also asked members of the public to send in messages that would be written on the bus.^[7]

On 5 October, Craig Oliver, former spin doctor for David Cameron, criticised BBC News for continuing to show images of the bus after the claim had been debunked. He asked on Radio 4, "Why, on the 6 and 10 o'clock news, [is Johnson] repeatedly doing interviews in front of a bus with a claim that is straightforwardly untrue?" A BBC spokesman, in response, cited several examples of the £350 million figure being debunked by the BBC, stating that "The fundamental charge — that BBC reporting resulted in a false balance in which fanciful claims got the same billing as serious insights — is not true."^[1]

The most significant feature of the bus was the claim on its side which stated that Britain sent £350 million to the European Union every week. This was based upon the Treasury's estimation of the gross amount of money that the UK contributed to the EU in 2015, totalling to £17.8 billion, or £342 million per week.^[3]

Full Fact, a fact-checking organisation, argued that this estimation did not take into account Britain's rebate, which had been negotiated under Margaret Thatcher in 1984 to be significantly lower than the usual 1% of national gross domestic product paid by other member states. As the UK's budget rebate to the EU in 2015 was £4.9 billion, an estimation involving the rebate would total to £12.9 billion, or £248 million per week, significantly less than £342 million per week. This rebate was deducted before any payment to the EU was made.^[3]

On 25 May, the Institute for Fiscal Studies accused the Brexit campaign of pushing "clearly absurd" figures in a report, stating that a vote to leave the EU, rather than saving the UK £350 million per week, or £18 billion per year, would instead cost the country £20-40 billion per year. Brexit campaigner John Redwood implicitly accepted that the £350 million figure was untrue on the BBC's Today programme, though retained that additional spending would only be around half the £350 million figure.^[8] On 27 May, the UK Statistics Authority chair Andrew Dilnot made a stronger statement against Vote Leave, stating that the continued use of the figure was "misleading and undermine[d] trust in official statistics".^[9]

On 4 June, Michael Gove agreed to an independent audit of the £350 million claim during an interview on Sky News.^[10]

On 9 June, Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party stated in a TV debate that the continued existence of the £350 million claim on the side of the campaign bus was a "scandal" and accused Johnson of "driving around the country in a bus with a giant whopper painted on the side", and Angela Eagle of Labour told Johnson to "get that lie off your bus!" Johnson repeatedly defended the use of the number.^[11] Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston defected from Vote Leave to support the Remain campaign the same day, citing that she no longer felt comfortable with Vote Leave due to the £350 million claim being false.^[12]

The pledge to spend £350 million on the NHS per week was immediately discarded when Theresa May became Prime Minister.^[2]

In September 2017, Boris Johnson mentioned the figure in an article he authored for the Daily Telegraph, writing that "once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350 million per week. It would be a fine thing, as many of us have pointed out, if a lot of that money went on the NHS." In response, Sir David Norgrove of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to Johnson that he was "surprised and disappointed" that Johnson had repeated the figure "in connection with the amount that might be available for extra public spending when we leave the European Union". Responding in turn, Johnson replied that he was also "surprised and disappointed" in Norgrove's letter and that he had not said that the £350 million would be available for public spending, but instead that while the government "will continue to spend significantly on UK priorities such as agriculture and research, that spending will be done under UK control." He also argued that the EU rebate was not under the UK's control, instead being agreed on by all EU member states.^[13]

In 2017, Dominic Cummings, leader of the Vote Leave campaign, stated that "all our research and the close result strongly suggest[ed]" that Remain would have won if Vote Leave had not used the £350 million NHS claim, and that "It was clearly the most effective argument, not only with the crucial swing [vote] but with almost every demographic".^[14]

In January 2018, Boris Johnson saidin an interview with the Guardian that "there was an error on the side of the bus. We grossly underestimated the sum over which we would be able to take back control", and also argued that the UK’s contributions to the EU were already at £362m per week in 2017-18 and would annually rise to £410m, £431m, and then to £438m by 2020-21.^[15]

A study by King's College London and Ipsos MORI, published in October 2018 found that 42 percent of people who had heard of the £350 million claim still believed it was true, whereas 36 percent thought it was false and 22 per cent were unsure. The study also found that criticism of the claim by the UK Statistics Authority and others had not changed belief in the claim since before the referendum.^[14]