• Reading Level 5
Maths | Science | Geography | Citizenship | PSHE

Slanging match over Boris EU sums continues

Is the foreign secretary’s claim that the UK will “take back control of £350m per week” true? The UK’s stats watchdog says it is a “clear misuse of statistics”. Johnson insists he is right. Boris Johnson launched a grenade through the Conservative Party this weekend, writing a 4,000 word article forn The Telegraph outlining his vision for "a bold, thriving Britain enabled by Brexit". Many see the article as a challenge to Theresa May and a bid to lead the country. Yesterday Theresa May refused to bow to one of his key demands -- to divert EU funds to the NHSThe National Health Service, the publicly funded healthcare system in the UK. The NHS was founded in 1948. after Brexit. And she insisted that she has not lost control of her cabinet. One paragraph in particular has caused a furore. "And yes - once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly 350m per week. It would be a fine thing, as many of us have pointed out, if a lot of that money went on then NHS." That statistic is a near-repeat of a claim made by the Leave campaign before the vote -- a claim that summed up the perception among many that the referendum campaign was dishonest. But it is not as simple as that. According to the BBC's Reality Check, 350m per week is indeed "an approximate sum for the UK's gross contribution to the EU". However, the figure would be lower if it accounted for Britain's "rebate" which is never sent to the EU in the first place and if it accounted for any EU money spent in Britain. Many have doubted whether the NHS really will see a huge post-Brexit cash injection, but Johnson and Vote Leave have been careful to frame the idea as a mere suggestion rather than a direct policy promise, using terms like "let's" and "it would be a fine thing". Dominic CummingsCummings, a former chief adviser to Boris Johnson, was himself widely condemned for breaking lockdown restrictions in 2020., Vote Leave's campaign director, defends the statistic using this analogy: when discussing their salary, a person talks about the money they receive before some is taken away in taxation. That is to say, they use the gross figure, not the net figure. In response to the article, Sir David Norgrove of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to Johnson saying he was "disappointed" calling it "a clear misuse of official statistics". Johnson hit back, saying the letter was a "wilful distortion of the text of my article". Numbers game "Boris's claim is correct," say some. And it does not, as Norgrove says, confuse the gross and net payments. The paragraph is very carefully and clearly worded, allowing for elbow room with its use of "roughly". He is also correct to say that we will "take back control" of that money, as we will not have to negotiate it back. "This is dishonesty dressed up as pedantic truths," reply others. The net figure is what matters, and the Leave campaign have never bothered to explicitly distinguish between the two. The UK net contribution to the EU is roughly 200m every week. That is an enormous difference, and it is shameful that a major politician is peddling this distortion. KeywordsNHS - The National Health Service, the publicly funded healthcare system in the UK. The NHS was founded in 1948.

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