UKIP: lying about who makes the UK’s laws since 2009 (video)

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In 2009, UKIP carefully edited a speech made in the European parliament so that its meaning was changed from the European parliament “is involved in making 75% of EU laws” i.e. the laws are the result of a democratic process to “75% of UK laws are made by the EU”.


Original Video/Audio © LBC / Sky News & BBC

At the time, this deception was questioned by Radio 4’s More Or Less programme and under questioning Paul Nuttall said that he would look into the issue. Of course, nothing changed and UKIP have been using the lie ever since.   So Tim Harford and More Or Less returned to the issue this month following Nigel Farage‘s appearance in the two EU debates with Nick Clegg where he repeated the claim on both occasions.

UKIP 75 per cent poster Complain final

UKIP does not represent an anti-establishment “insurgency” as they like to claim.  Indeed many of their leadership  including the leader, Mr Farage and deputy-chairman, Neil Hamilton, are as establishment as it gets.  Their lies and misrepresentations are crass and dangerous and foreshadow policies that are sinister and a backward step for our democracy.

10 Reasons to vote UKIP

Our parliamentary democracy is precious and the current crop of Westminster politicians have endangered it by pandering to big business and other powerful but self-interested pressure groups.  That is a reason to call for change but it is not a reason to vote for UKIP.

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Facts matter.

 “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

If you want to know the objective facts about the EU, you can download the Regents report here: The UK & Europe: Costs, Benefits, Options Regents Report 2013.  this is what The Observer said about the report back in November:

Subtitled The Regent’s Report 2013, the 237-page document is going to be useful to all sides if we do have to go through what I myself regard as an unnecessary and time-wasting referendum on our membership of the European Union.

For a group of authors who are largely pro-European – and some, even now, pro-eurozone – they have produced a remarkably balanced document, with the emphasis on – wait for it – facts. There is plenty of acknowledgement of the tiresome aspects of the EU, and among a plethora of statistics, some obvious ones stand out.

These will not be new to students of the EU, but you can be sure they will not be highlighted by the anti-Europe brigade – many of whom have very nice houses in France, Spain, Italy and other parts of the EU. Suffice it to repeat here that, for all the fuss made by the anti-European press and Ukip, the entire “Brussels budget” amounts to 1% of EU gross domestic product.

Confusion can be worse confounded when it comes to facts. With economic statistics, we are often talking about estimates rather than facts. I have never found any evidence that Keynes made the remark often attributed to him: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

The explanation is simple: Keynes was far too intelligent to believe that facts could change. Facts are facts. Circumstances can change, and new information or more refined calculation can alter previous estimates.

William Keegan writing in The Observer 3 November 2013

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