- On January 31, after nearly three years of negotiations, the United Kingdom left the European Union.
- The Brexit issue has split supporters of a departure and those who advocated staying in the European Union ... even if it means resorting to poisoning to defend their camp.
- 20 Minutes returns to three particularly striking false statements.
After years of negotiations and political twists and turns, the United Kingdom is preparing to leave the European Union for good this Friday at 11 p.m. (London time). The opportunity to come back, before the entry into force of Brexit, on some intoxicants that punctuated the debates of the supporters of "leave" and "remain" during this long process.
The Queen, in favor of Brexit?
On March 9, 2016, three months before the long-awaited Brexit referendum, the tabloid The Sun claims to reveal a huge scoop by titling in one: "The queen supports Brexit".
The Queen backs the Brexit - read tomorrow's front page exclusive here: https://t.co/pykw3ApLW5 pic.twitter.com/T95rcdfPig
- The Sun (@TheSun) March 8, 2016 If this statement arouses surprise in the media, it does not really correspond to the information "revealed" by the successful tabloid, which simply indicated that Elizabeth II had criticized the European Union during a lunch with the Deputy Prime Minister Minister Nick Clegg ... in 2011.
In addition to publishing a scathing denial, recalling that "the queen remains politically neutral, as has been the case for 63 years" and that there was no question of "how [er] fallacious gossip based on anonymous sources ", Buckingham Palace had immediately seized the Independent Press Standards Organization (Ipso), the regulator of the British press, to denounce this front page.
Three months later, this body found this a "particularly misleading". This did not prevent the media and political commentators from trying to detect multiple "coded messages" from the Queen on Brexit according to her different media appearances over the past three years.
UK budget participation in EU costs £ 350m a week
It was one of the flagship slogans of the Brexit campaign, an impossible-to-miss promise on the bright red buses where it was displayed in capital letters: "We give £ 350 million a week to the EU, better is worth funding the NHS [the British health service] with ”.
Boris Johnson falsely promised £ 350 million a week for the NHS!
Boris Johnson put it on the Brexit bus !!
Pass it on! RT like fury ... # SEO #BUS #NHS #BREXIT # 350million @ NHSMillion pic.twitter.com/ghoDBuYnI7
Invoked by Boris Johnson as by Theresa May, the argument was omnipresent in the debates opposing the supporters of "leave" to those of "remain". But this figure, like the promise to redistribute it at national level, were in reality both misleading, as the British statistics office had denounced in particular, citing a "misuse of official statistics".
If the United Kingdom did indeed provide 18 billion euros per year to the budget of the European Union - based on the estimate for 2015 - or the equivalent of 350 million per week, However, the British rebate - negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 - had to be applied, which reduced this amount to 13 billion annually, or around 250 million pounds weekly, as noted by Fullfact.org, a British fact-checking association. And even at 136 million per week taking into account certain financial aid provided by Brussels in the United Kingdom.
In practice, the entry into force of Brexit will have a significant additional cost for the United Kingdom, which will have to pay a little less than £ 30 billion to the European Union - an amount which has decreased over the delays it has experienced for its final exit, since it was originally to be 39 million - under the "divorce agreement" between the two parties.
The assertion advanced by the supporters of the "leave" on the alleged 350 million weekly has in any case left traces since, according to a survey carried out in 2018, 42% of the British believed it to be true.
Two thirds of the manufacturing industry depend on European demand
It was one of the assertions made by Alan Johnson, a Labor Party politician opposed to Brexit, as the referendum approached: “Our membership of the European Union is crucial for our manufacturing industry. Two-thirds of jobs [in this field, which includes the manufacture of drinks, tobacco, textiles, etc.] depend on European demand. "
Data obtained by subtracting the 1.7 million workers in the sector whose jobs depended on trade with other EU countries in 2011, from the 2.55 million jobs in this field accounted for in total in that same year by the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
The problem is that this calculation is misleading: the 1.7 million in question includes jobs directly linked to trade with the EU, but also indirect jobs. According to the updated and really relevant figures provided by the CEBR to Fullfact.org, the total of the jobs concerned would rather be around 436,000, or 17% of the 2.5 million manufacturing industries in 2011.
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