One of the reasons citizen media has evolved in to such a formidable (but very likeable) beast is that it recognises that the corporate media leave stuff out they don’t like or agree with. This results in bias and confusion amongst the public. This won’t go away but it can be partially redeemed by becoming empowered to find out for ourselves and to find sources that focus solely upon the facts and their analysis. With this in mind Dorset Eye has utilised a wonderful charity that does just this.
To reveal how much confusion and how much we are being mislead was exemplified on last Thursday’s Question Time where three Brexit panel members all said something very different to a question about UK contributions to EU:
EU membership fee
“[£350 million a week] is the gross figure, the official Office for National Statistics figure for our weekly contribution to the European Union, table 9.9 of the ONS Pink Book 2014. We get about half of that money back with strings attached”—Chris Grayling MP
“The £350 million, they give us half back of our money, but they decide where it goes… they absolutely decide where [the rebate] goes… they do!”—Allison Pearson
“Is it true the EU tells us where to spend the rebate?”—David Dimbleby
“No it doesn’t”—Nigel Farage
‘Mass confusion reigned on how much the UK pays in membership fees to the European Union. It is not correct that the up-front payment is £350 million a week, because the UK’s rebate on that sum is a discount, not a refund.
£350 million a week is about what we would pay if not for the discount that the rebate provides. The Treasury and the European Commission haveboth confirmed to us that the actual payment is the gross contribution minus the rebate.
So because the rebate amount never leaves the UK, the EU cannot control where it’s spent.
The UK Statistics Authority agrees, saying that it is “disappointed to note that there continue to be suggestions that the UK contributes £350 million to the EU each week, and that this full amount could be spent elsewhere”.
As for the ONS Pink Book mentioned by Mr Grayling, it is true that table 9.9seems to show a gross figure of £19 billion in payments. But the ONS has also made clear that “this amount of money was never actually transferred to the EU”.
So what are the actual payments? For 2015, an estimated £250 million a week. As the Leave side say, some of that (roughly £80 million) comes back in EU grants and spending. More goes directly to the private sector, although we don’t have 2015 figures for that.
It’s fair to say we don’t control these payments. And the UK does get backless than half of the money it pays to the EU in most years.
Depending on whether you take the fee before or after this money comes back, our EU budget contribution is between 1% and 2% of government spending.
But that doesn’t mean we could lavish money on the NHS. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded, there is “virtual unanimity” among economists that leaving would come at an economic cost, which in turn would affect the public finances – to the tune of £20 to £40 billion a year, in its estimate. That’s more than enough to wipe out the membership fee savings.’
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