After the Brexit vote, the Leave side stopped campaigning – and this was a massive error. It has allowed Brexit to be defined by its enemies. Sure, the forecasts of an immediate recession didn’t come to pass. But that has made the publications who predicted it even more angry, and determined to portray it as a disaster. The human need for vindication has created a new media bias in much of the coverage, and we now see Brexit being attacked more vociferously now than in during the referendum campaign. So the government needs to step up its positive message – and activate its greatest messengers.
Fraser Nelson
Boris has written an article in the Telegraph spelling out why Brexit will be great for Britain. He talks of many things but the BBC are only interested in targeting two of these…one, they insist this is a challenge for the leadership of the Tory Party [the BBC keen to stir the pot and encourage a general election which they believe Corbyn would win]…Fraser Nelson in the Spectator notes….
Needless to say, it [the article] was greeted with shock by his critics, whose main weapon against him is to accuse him of a leadership bid. I was on the BBC News channel earlier and asked why, if it wasn’t a leadership bid, he started his column with the words ‘My friends’. The answer is that Boris always talks in this way, especially to readers of the Telegraph and The Spectator whom he genuinely regards as friends.
…..and two, the BBC makes what is a deliberately dishonest statement about Boris’ claim regarding the £350 million. It is an outright lie and complete distortion of his comments by the BBC to mislead the audience in order to discredit the Leave campaign.
The BBC has been telling us all morning that Boris said we would ‘save £350 million after Brexit’ or that ‘Brexit would make us £350 million per week richer’….but that is a lie. I know it is a lie because I have read Boris’ article and I am pretty sure the BBC must have read it too and yet have decided to give the public an utterly false summary of his words…here’s the BBC spreading a lie of Orwellian proportions…..
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has repeated the controversial claim that leaving the EU would save £350m a week, which could be spent on the NHS.
But what did Boris actually say?…he said we’d take back control of ‘roughly’ £350 million…an entirely different meaning…and he didn’t say it could all be spent on the NHS as the BBC report…..
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.
The BBC also tells us…
The figure, used by Leave campaigners before the referendum, was “misleading”, the UK statistics watchdog later said.
Actually no he did not…he said ‘potentially misleading’ but only because he felt the rebate and funds the EU spends on UK projects should be made clearer….the gross figure is in fact correct as the above chart shows [in fact it would be £377 million for 2015 as it changes each year]…..not sure you could get all that on the side of a bus….
The use of the £350 million figure, which appears to be a gross figure which does not take into account the rebate or other flows from the EU to the UK public sector (or flows to non-public sector bodies), alongside the suggestion that this could be spent elsewhere. Without further explanation I consider these statements to be potentially misleading. Given the high level of public interest in this debate it is important that official statistics are used accurately , with important limitations or caveats clearly explained.
Boris, and not the BBC, is correct…we will take back control of the money. Even the rebate is still under EU control. It is essentially only given to us on a whim and can be removed pretty much on a whim as many in the EU want….
UK got out just in time! EU plots to SCRAP budget rebates to Brussels’ contributors
Such limitations or caveats aren’t made clear by the BBC….but it does claim that the rebate shouldn’t count anyway as it doesn’t actually physically go to the EU…
The UK’s gross contribution was actually £361m, but – crucially – the rebate is removed before any money is sent to the EU.
Why does that make the slightest, never mind ‘crucial’, difference?…it is still money the EU would take off us but doesn’t purely because we have negotiated a rebate…one that can be taken away at any time….and let’s not forget the Remainers would like to hand it back anyway. The EU still controls that money in effect….it’s called a ‘rebate’ for a reason.
The seemingly left-leaning ‘Fullfact’ site tells us...
£350 million is what we would pay to the EU budget, without the rebate.
Who am I to argue with such an august body?
And Fraser Nelson says…
Isn’t he supposed to be hanging his head in shame about that claim on the side of a bus? Not a bit of it: he’s repeating his (accurate) point that Britain will be ‘taking back control’ of the weekly £350 million sent to the EU. And yes, it’s a lesser sum once you factor in EU spending on Britain but the word ‘control’ is crucial.
As for the money the EU kindly spends in the UK the EU decides how to spend it and demands we thank them for doing so. The BBC, whilst telling us Boris is lying and that we don’t send the EU £350 million per week because much of the money is spent on UK projects, then tells us, when it wants to promote the EU and encourage us to think how wonderful and generous it is, that the money it spends here is ‘EU money’….so on the one hand the BBC claims we don’t get the money back Boris claims we do because the EU spends it here and then the BBC tells us that it is EU money when it suits the BBC’s pro-EU agenda….all that deliberately misleads people as to the real point of the Leave claims…that this is about taking back control of how that money is spent not about the exact amounts of the contribution.
The BBC is trying hard not to discuss that real issue and instead tells a very obvious lie, one of huge proportions that the Leave camp should go straight to Ofcom about bypassing what we all know will be a wilfully hopeless response from the BBC complaints office [lol]
The BBC fails to note some other interesting comments in the article…..
There were lifelong Eurosceptics who decided at the last monet to remain; and a great many, in my view, whose heart said leave, but whose resolve was finally shaken by the warnungs of the Government, the BBC, Barack Obama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the CBI, every major oltical party and much of the media.
Unemployment is at record lows, and manufacturing is booming “in spite of Brexit”, as the BBC would put it. (Have you noticed that any good news is always “in site of Brexit”?)
And always odd how Putin and the Russians perhaps interfering in US politics [what’s new?] is a BBC hot topic and yet Obama interfering in British politics is entirely uncontroversial.
Now BBC add ;
The money earned by the Poles and other EU nationals here which they send home
The money directly sent to other EU nations by the DHSS for such expenses like child allowance
The money spent on schools , hospitals and other infrastructure to cope with the extra people because the EU nationals come here .
The money we spend housing the criminals from the EU in our prisons
The money spent on border controls before the Eastern EU nations came in
The money spent on our roads to maintain them after the EU lorries used them without paying for them
And we get the figure of over £350 million a week lost from us to them .
And much of the money we send as Danegeld to the EU goes to EE states. Poland receives about the same amount as that stolen from us. They use it to build roads and factories. The factories compete with us and/or offer cheaper costs which entice our producers. We, mugs that we are, lose every which way.
Sky were no better. I’ve come to the conclusion if we have another world war it will be because of the likes of Kay Burley airheads spouting garbage, asking idiotic questions and building mountains out of molehills.
Whilst Boris DID come out on the LEAVE side, it should be remembered that he only sided with LEAVE when it appeared that there was a possibility that LEAVE might win. Until then, he sat on the fence.
Boris was dazed and confused day after European Referendum. That does not show good leadership skills .. campaigning to lose?
That was his opportunity for leadership of the country lost, in my opinion.
True-but his marvellous article shows what a talent he is.
Needs to get out of politics and join with Farage.
This article of his has rattled them-freedom of speech is not allowed in a Foreign Secretary, duly elected in 2017…chilling. Glad he went back to that £350million figues too-that has stuck the skewer into the rats nest of Moaners.
Hope Gove will double down re “experts” as well….that seems to get them too.
In short , a great article that only smokes out the vermin who want to thwart us.
The BBC-majoring on minors like Andrew Gilligans filofax entries or a figure that`s likely to be right from Boris. But like Savile-the BBC like to major in on minors as ever.
Bought the paper, the best Brexit defence since last year.
Whilst Fraser Nelson probably has a point, The Spectator, on the whole, has been part of the problem and so is as guilty as the MSM for their pro-brexit stance. I withdrew about 2 months ago from being a ‘paying’ subscriber due to the rising number of anti-brexit pieces. They also continue to give ‘air-time’ to Nick Cohen who has now become a worn-out record repeating the same bile but in differing formats and he has become a continual irritation to many of The Speccie subscribers.
Never been the same since Auberon Waugh left.