Brexit: Boris Leadership Pitch Is £350m a Week to NHS?

The opening salvo in the race to become the Tories next leader, was fired by Boris Johnson with a controversial 4,000-word “ blueprint” for Britain after leaving the EU.

In what was seen by many pundits and politicians alike as a leadership pitch, Boris Johnson has usurped Prime Minister Theresa May who is due to fly to Florence in a few days to give her own “ significant and important “ policy speech on Britain’s future post-Brexit.

And it also comes just three weeks before the Conservative Party’s annual Conference when there is expected to be a “ beauty contest” to unseat May. Johnson got his position – some critics would suggest retaliation – in early with his 4,000-word article that was splashed over much of the Tory-leaning Daily Telegraph.

Once again Johnson – who has been lampooned and ridiculed in recent weeks by several commentators — resurrected the often-derided ‘side-of-a-bus claim’ that the NHS could get an extra £350m a week after UK leaves the EU. That is in excess of £18 billion per year.

It is a figure repeatedly disputed by many reputable financiers and financial institutes. One newspaper pointed out that an audit of how much money Britain is sending the EU weekly is a net contribution of £156 million in the last year – less than half the figure Boris Johnson claimed.

And it pointed out that much of that saving will need to be paid out to industries losing out on European funding, such as farmers, universities and research organisations.

Gary Gibbon, channel 4’s political pundit wrote on his blog:” Boris Johnson’s Telegraph article is clearly the speech he had hoped to give about now but was told by a No 10 emissary he should not.

“Instead he has burst onto the scene in print, albeit unhelpfully behind a paywall and on a day when the threat level has been raised and eyes are largely elsewhere.”

What is he up to, questions Gibbon. “Boris Johnson wants to re-establish his credentials as the godfather of Brexit, the man whose weight and campaigning presence helped to tip the balance in the referendum: the big beast who could keep Nigel Farage off the centre stage in that campaign and diminish the weight of the political establishment standing on the other side of the argument, he wrote.

“He wants to re-establish those credentials because he wants to be leader of his party and Prime Minister.”

Will Tanner, a former adviser to the Prime Minister, tweeted it was “astonishing” that Mr Johnson thought “this self-serving posturing, disloyal at best of times, would reflect well in the hours after a terror attack”.

“The real PM just raised the threat level,” he said. “Meanwhile guy who wants to replace her issues a prelude to resignation, to save face over £350m. Hmm.”

Johnson also faced considerable criticism for the outburst on the same day of a terrorist incident on the London Underground. Accompanied by an image of the Foreign Secretary leaving Downing Street, the article appeared just hours after the Prime Minister raised the country’s threat level to critical – the highest possible level, suggesting another attack might be imminent.

Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesperson said the article “laid bare the conflicts at the heart of Theresa May’s Government” over the Brexit negotiations and “cut the ground from beneath the Prime Minister’s authority”.

They added: “In the process he has exposed the Tories’ real Brexit agenda – a race to the bottom in regulation and corporate tax cuts to benefit the wealthy few at the expense of the rights of the rest of us.

“The Foreign Secretary even has the gall to dredge up the fantasy of £350 million a week extra for the NHS. The Prime Minister must spell out now how this will be paid for, or stand condemned for once again trying to mislead the British public.”

In the article Mr Johnson wrote: “Once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350m 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, provided we use that cash injection to modernise and make the most of new technology.

“One of the advantages of investing in the NHS – if we combine that investment with reform – is that we can turbo charge the role of our health service in driving bioscience.”

Labour’s Chuka Umunna, leading supporter of Open Britain, which is campaigning for continued single market membership, added: “Boris Johnson had a chance to vote to deliver the £350m extra a week for the NHS in February, and he refused to do so.

“He promised to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, and nothing has happened. No one can trust a word he says.

by Bob Graham

The post Brexit: Boris Leadership Pitch Is £350m a Week to NHS? appeared first on Felix Magazine.