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Original poster

Why is NI being increased when Brexit was meant to fund the NHS shortfall.

76 replies

pollygartertidywife · 24/01/2022 08:44

Hi All. I am really sorry if this question has been asked before but I have had a look for a past thread and can't find one.
I have just listened to all the guff coming out of Nadhim Zahawi's mouth this morning on the Today programme. Lots of talk about how the NI rise is essential to fund NHS and social care.. and I can't help but cast my mind back 4 /5 years and seem to remember that one of the main reasons to leave the EU was the amount of money we paid in.. and how all that dosh was going to support the NHS . It was a big influence in many people voting to leave.
(I voted remain but did waiver for a moment on this particular issue )

Has this claim been forgotten about ? Why is it not mentioned in political debate ? And if it has - what is the reasoning given that this hike is needed on top of all the Brexit 'savings'

OP posts:
Peregrina · 08/02/2022 23:20

And then of course the Tories squandered money on giving PPE contracts to their mates, regardless of whether they were able to deliver the goods, which was mostly not. That money could have gone directly to the NHS.

MrsSkylerWhite · 08/02/2022 23:21

Erm, because we were all lied to. Obviously.

Sprucewillis · 08/02/2022 23:31

Indeed why?

LadyWithLapdog · 08/02/2022 23:41

Because it was a lie. Then there's also corruption. More lies. More corruption. You get the idea. The Tory way.

forcedfun · 08/02/2022 23:48

The "NHS" claim was just that. An outright lie

Peddled by the same person who can cheerily tell parliament they didn't know about any parties at no10 despite having been at many of them.

Brexit was always going to leave us far worse off economically (and culturally, politically....)

forcedfun · 08/02/2022 23:49

Many many people were pointing out at the time that it was a lie. But people didn't want to listen to the "experts"

milveycrohn · 08/02/2022 23:52

Because the furlough, the loans, the lockdown, the testing has costs, including the backlog in the NHS of other non Covid ailments.

TooBigForMyBoots · 08/02/2022 23:59

*09:25QuestionsorComments

I do understand why the money is needed but I don't understand why more political capital isn't been made from the fact thatthey liedand the thing people voted for can't and never was going to happen.*

There is no political capital to be made from pointing out the lies told by the Leave campaign. There isn't even any political capital to be made from the fact the PM told lies last year/week/yesterday/20 minutes ago.

The voters know all about the lies but they prefer them to reality.🤷‍♀️

nancy75 · 09/02/2022 00:00

@milveycrohn

Because the furlough, the loans, the lockdown, the testing has costs, including the backlog in the NHS of other non Covid ailments.
You forgot the billions lost to dodgy PPE contracts the government gave to their mates plus the ridiculous track & trace costs for something that was totally useless. Still at least Hancocks mate the pub landlord made a few quid out of it…
ClariceQuiff · 09/02/2022 00:01

@forcedfun

Many many people were pointing out at the time that it was a lie. But people didn't want to listen to the "experts"
This.

Any suggestion that the Leave claims might be a load of old cobblers was dismissed as 'project fear'.

godeeva · 09/02/2022 00:02

Ask Boris about this (or get your MP to ask him during PMQs). I doubt he will answer though...judging from his recent behaviour - he remembers nothing.Smile

80sMum · 09/02/2022 00:30

@Babdoc

Just imagine how much worse off we would be currently, if we were still haemorrhaging £350 million a week to the EU on top of the £82 billion (and rising) cost of the pandemic. And OP yes, the whole world has covid. And most countries are struggling with the cost, as we are. But most were not so generous with furlough, and many have not provided adequate vaccine coverage.
We have not stopped making payments to the EU! We'll be paying annual instalments towards the "divorce bill" for the next 34 years! So we won't finish paying until 2057. I doubt I'll live that long! I'll be 99 by then.

If you add that to the billions of pounds incurred in the costs of actually leaving and all the barriers to trade, leaving the EU is clearly more expensive than being in it, by several orders of magnitude!
The amount we will have spent on leaving would be equivalent to about 40 years of membership!

LuluBlakey1 · 09/02/2022 00:33

Because Johnson and the Tories lied- they have lied about or covered up so many hideous things that I can't think of a single one of them without feeling utter contempt for them.

SomePosters · 09/02/2022 00:43

@BuanoKubiamVej

The total budget for the nhs is more than £100bn/yr. That doesn't include everything because it's not all a single lump sum from one source but that's the scale. The total tax revenue the government takes from all sources is around £850bn/yr so the NHS is a bit less than an eighth of that.

The actual net contribution to the EU was about £7.8bn/yr (source here but the government is having to spend way more than that on propping up all the communities and industries who have lost EU funding, so there is zero brexit dividend, which was entirely predictable and was indeed publicly predicted many many times before the referendum.

The idea that leaving the EU was ever going to solve nhs underfunding was laughable. Even if there had been a brexit dividend it would have been a drop in the ocean. It's unfortunate that the state of education in this country is so low that too many people were taken in by such ridiculous claims, but it's done now.

Yabu for expecting any kind of honesty and integrity from the clowns who are currently in charge, but this country has the crappy government it deserves, and things will carry on getting worse because there are insufficient people who care enough to make any significant changes.

Correct on every point except the last one

It’s not that people don’t care, it’s that they’ve been ground down over generations and don’t understand how to empower themselves.

Especially right now everyone’s just trying to survive and only has so much brain space for the shit show in Westminster

Fifteentoes · 09/02/2022 00:48

@SantaClawsServiette

I don't think many people really expect anything said in a political campaign to happen any more. Does anyone thing that had Remain won there would be serious moves to try and reform the EU? And then many people who voted did so for other reasons anyway and maybe never thought that particular idea held water.

But in any case, things have been so off the rails due to covid it's not even really possible to speculate about any plan or plan like suggestions about health care funding. It would really be pure speculation and a waste of time.

Why is it that every time Tory politicians are exposed as liars, people lazily make themselves feel better about it by concluding "all politicians are liars". Rather than what the evidence is actually telling us: Tory politicians are liars.

We don't know what would have happened about EU reform if remain had won. It would probably depend on election outcomes and myriad other factors. Each politician in power would then have been responsible for the promises they had made. Some would rise to the challenge, some not.

Meanwhile, those who actually ARE in power are responsible for the promises they DID make. They are. Not everyone. Not some vague platitude about how nothing every works out how you expect...

SantaClawsServiette · 09/02/2022 03:36

People's experiences of having the LP in power didn't convince them that they are less likely to be liars? Or were more likely to follow through on campaign promises?

Lots of people have Labour MPs they have no time for and think are slimy liars.

Nightlystroll · 09/02/2022 03:42

Ultimately it doesn't really matter if they'd come through with their promises or not. We'll never know because the pandemic crashed over us. That has created a huge hole to fill. And they are raising NI to fund social care. Another huge hole. It's not like we're the only country experiencing this.

IpanemaPeaHen · 09/02/2022 07:54

Well it does matter, pandemic or not, because we could do with that money now for the NHS which is going to worse off because of Brexit.

So yes I’d like JRM, new minister for Brexit opportunity, to confirm if he lied about that money which resulted in swaying some people to vote leave.

Peregrina · 09/02/2022 08:05

Nothing would have happened with EU Reform with Cameron still as PM, who was still in hock to the ERG and still scared stiff of losing votes to UKIP. It was also a very convenient excuse for their policies, either - we can't do this because the EU won't let us/we have to do this because the EU makes us.

Who knows what would have happened if someone genuinely committed to the EU had been PM, but one who could see its flaws but tried to make improvements?

Peregrina · 09/02/2022 08:10

Covid has caused a huge hole in the finances, but why should the poor and averagely well off shoulder the burden? How about a windfall tax on the energy companies? How about making some effort to claw back the money lost through fraudulent Covid contracts? It's a choice.

arethereanyleftatall · 09/02/2022 12:11

I don't know a single person who voted leave off the back of what was written on a bus. If you do, maybe it's time to rethink your social circle?

IpanemaPeaHen · 09/02/2022 13:04

What a daft comment arethereanyleft

Peregrina · 09/02/2022 14:06

One tends to have friends who think the same way - so the PP might not know anyone who voted Leave on the basis of more money for the NHS but I am well prepared to believe that thousands did.

Wheresthebeach · 09/02/2022 14:07

This is the problem, people believed that damn bus.

Cornettoninja · 09/02/2022 14:12

It was an outright lie, Dominic Cummings did an interview and laughingly admitted that.

Some people saw through it at the time, some didn’t care it was a lie. some paid no attention and some believed it. But it was always a lie. The brexit campaign was one massive grift, how could it be anything else? No one could make the kind of promises they were making without knowing they had zero way of ensuring their claims could happen.