Help us step up our foreign aid crusade with online petition
OUR fight to Stop The Foreign Aid Madness continued to gather momentum yesterday as the Daily Express was praised for speaking up for Britain.
This week we delivered a powerful petition on behalf of 100,000 readers to Prime Minister Theresa May calling on her to act immediately.
And today we urge people across the country to pile more pressure on the Government by signing an online petition to trigger a Parliamentary debate.
In addition to our postal coupon crusade, which was passed to 10 Downing Street by Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, right, a further 27,500 people have signed a Government website petition calling for a change in the law.
It needs the support of 100,000 signatories by March 14 to force a debate in the House of Commons.
Daily Express reader Robert Barnes came up with the idea after being outraged frontline NHS services were being starved of cash at a time we continue to send £13.4billion abroad every year due to a commitment to spend at least 0.7 per cent of national income overseas.
Mr Barnes, 52, of Oldham, said: “The presentation of the petition to Downing Street showed the strength of feeling of the British people about how their taxes are spent.
“The excellent Stop The Foreign Aid Madness campaign by the Daily Express has garnered support from MPs, the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the public. “This is just the start. “The aid budget should be abolished. The money saved should go towards the NHS, adult social care and helping our homeless veterans.
“The people have spoken. It is now time for the Government to act.”
Daily Express readers do not doubt Britain’s moral responsibility to help lift countries less fortunate than ours out of poverty but believe setting a legally CRUSADE binding target when the NHS is suffering a funding crisis is preposterous.
Latest NHS England performance figures show more than 80,000 patients waited for more than four hours on trolleys in A&E in January.
More than 1,000 of them waited for over 12 hours – the highest number since records began. The scale of the crisis in the NHS was laid bare by Nuffield Trust chief economist John Appleby who said: “A year ago we warned corridors had become the new emergency wards.
“It is deeply concerning that 12 months on, the position has worsened, with many harrowing reports of patients being treated in busy corridors by stressed and overworked staff.
“Every part of the NHS is creaking at the seams. It is time to face facts and offer sustainable funding increases to the health service.”
For every £8 spent on aid globally, £1 now comes courtesy of Britain.
Our crusade was the first to highlight a series of scandals including how British taxpayers gave Yegna, a fivepiece girl band nicknamed the Spice Girls, £4million as part of a project to empower women in Ethiopia.
Corrupt
We also revealed how the UK was sending £2million to Zimbabwe every week to “promote democracy” under the despotic regime of former president Robert Mugabe. In 2015 the corrupt country received almost £100million in foreign aid handouts.
Meanwhile, Britain increased the financial assistance gifted to Pakistan by almost 25 per cent from £374million in 2015 to £463million in 2016, equal to £1.2million a day. The country is now the biggest recipient of UK foreign aid, despite developing its own space and nuclear weapons programmes.
Yesterday readers praised the crusading Daily Express for forcing the issue to the top of the political agenda.
On the Express website one said: “I agree with foreign aid following major disasters but sending money abroad to pay for arts projects and corrupt governments should stop now.”
You can sign the petition by visiting petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200292