A debatable dividend
It was put on the side of a bus by the Leave campaign, but the £350 million-a-week “Brexit dividend” has always been in dispute.
The UK Statistics Authority has repeatedly told off the likes of Boris Johnson for using the figure, which fails to take into account the UK’S budget rebate or investment that the EU returns to the UK. The UK’S net contribution to the EU in 2017 was more like £173m per week.
Over the five-year period covered by the Prime Minister’s spending pledge, however, there won’t even be that sum to spend on the NHS: that’s because the UK will continue to pay into the EU through the transition, until the end of 2020, and will pay almost £20 billion of its “divorce bill” through to 2028.
In addition, the government committed to keep EU funding for agricultural subsidies and university research at the same level in the short term, eating up any windfall.
Those figures are effectively set in stone, so there won’t be any Brexit dividend for up to a decade. Beyond that, if OBR growth forecasts are accurate, the public finances are set to be £15bn worse off by 2021 – or £300m a week.
We could end up by bringing down the Prime Minister if there is no deal on Brexit, rebels warn
Tory rebels could collapse the government if the UK ends up with a no-deal Brexit, former attorney-general Dominic Grieve has said.
Rebel ringleader Mr Grieve made it clear pro-europe Tories would not accept a “slavery clause” tying them to any deal Theresa May brings back from Brussels.
Rebels want Parliament to have the right to block a no-deal Brexit. Asked if voting against the government could bring it down, Mr Grieve told the BBC’S Sunday Politics: “We could collapse the government. And I can assure you I wake up at 2am in a cold sweat thinking about the problems that we have put on our shoulders.”
The showdown over a socalled “meaningful vote” for MPS is set to dominate the Commons again this week as the EU Withdrawal Bill returns from the Lords in a bout of parliamentary “ping pong”.
The former attorney-general said it was important for MPS to have a real say on a Brexit deal. He told the BBC: “I can’t save the government from getting into a situation where Parliament might disagree with it. The alternative is that we have all got to sign-up to a slavery clause now saying whatever the government does, when it comes to January, however potentially catastrophic it might be for my constituents, and my country, I’m signing in blood now that I will follow over the edge of the cliff.
“And that, I can tell you, I am not prepared to do.”
If MPS reject the agreement reached by Mrs May with Brussels, or if there is no deal by 21 January, Parliament will only be offered the opportunity to vote on an unamendable “neutral motion”.
Mrs May said that she had listened to rebels’ concerns, but added: “Parliament cannot tie the hands of government in negotiations.”