Andrew RT Davies: Brexit £350m per week ‘does’ go to the NHS
The leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew RT Davies has once more come under fire on social media for making claims that have shown to be factually incorrect.
In a series of Tweets which began with him hitting out at Welsh Labour’s record with the NHS, he claimed that the NHS is in receipt of the £350m per week that former PM Boris Johnson promised Brexit would make available.
Responding to an article by Wes Streeting, UK Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, about Labour rebuilding the NHS in two terms, Mr Davies said that after 24 years in power, waiting lists and ambulance response times under Welsh Labour are ‘far longer than England’s’ and that ‘Labour cannot be trusted with the NHS.’
Almost immediately, one twitter user responded with an image of the notorious Brexit bus used by the Vote Leave campaign which claimed EU funds would be directed into the NHS if Britain left Europe, asking ‘Where is this funding Andrew?’
Mr Davies replied: “Our NHS has received this funding (and some more on top). Brexit has been good for our NHS”
Our NHS has received this funding (and some more on top). Brexit has been good for our NHS.
— Andrew RT Davies (@AndrewRTDavies) April 23, 2023
Fact check
The claim that the UK sent £350m per week to the EU and would have it ‘going spare’ following Brexit was made by Vote Leave and repeated several times by former PM Boris Johnson in 2017.
At the time it was found to be false by Full Fact, a fact checking organisation.
On the Full Fact website it states that the claim was declared “a clear misuse of statistics” by the UK Statistics Authority.
The website says: “ We have never paid the EU £350 million a week and we have never owed the EU £350 million a week. After we leave the EU, that means we cannot take back control of £350 million a week.
“However you adjust the claim to make it more accurate, it will always miss the key context: economists on both sides during the referendum predicted that the impact on the economy from changes to trade and more would be far bigger than the UK’s EU membership fee.”
Distorting the truth
Last week, Nation.Cymru reported that senior Tories were accused of “distorting” the truth over inaccurate reports in the English press that the Welsh Government plans to give asylum seekers a monthly £1,600 hand out.
Andrew RT Davies and Secretary of State for Wales David TC Davies both criticised the supposed plans and did not give any context to the fact that the Basic Income for Care Leavers pilot was for all eligible young people leaving care, including a small number of asylum seeker children who were raised in care.
RT Davies tweeted a screen grab of a story from The Sun about the pilot scheme in a post that read: “This plan from Labour is genuinely one of the most extreme policies I’ve ever seen. Thank goodness we have a Conservative Government to step in and block it.”
Counsel General of Wales, Mick Antoniw MS hit back at Mr Davies saying: “But you know this is an inaccurate and distorted story. Are you really so desperate electorally?”
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Brexiters lie. It works for them so they carry on doing it. The idea is that a lie told frequently enough will become accepted. So Freeports are put forward as a Brexit benefit, except we had them until 2012, and the vaccine rollout was only possible out of the EU, except that special rules allowed for it anyway. Their fantasy ideology trumps your prosperity as the cost of Brexit mounts for: Food – Brexit weakened pound, massive new red tape, EU exporters pulling out, truck drivers unwilling to come here, delays and hassle for documents and at ports, lack of… Read more »
The tories never admit to the lies they constantly tell and never apologise or retract anything they lie about, they use the philosophy that if they say it often enough some people will believe them, and they rely on the Tory press to spin the untruths to the general public
He has a meeting with this Dr Iona characters days ago, she comes out critical of Welsh NHS, not to say its not poor, but still, then he himself is on the attack too. Its all rigged.
As someone who is supposed to speak for Wales, which ‘our NHS’ is he referring to Welsh or UK? What is not on the lie bus are the words PER WEEK which was rammed down our throats relentlessly and meant that there would be £350 million pounds PER WEEK on top of the existing funding pumped into the NHS which could have seen doctors, nurses and midwives paid properly, no strikes, waiting lists eradicated and nobody suffering. Who wouldn’t want to vote for that but given the reality it’s fair to ask again where is the funding?
Sorry, it does say ‘a week’ on the bus so the lie is clear.
Such a liar, we never payed that much to the EU. And we are missing a fortune in the money we got back from being a poor country due to bad uk governance.
Tories, talking a load of ‘vogel’!
Brilliant! Especially as “Vogel” is used in German as idiocy.
There are two reasons why he would post such things. he is either a fool, who retweets things he has read or been told, without checking they are factually correct, or he knows these tweets are lies, and he retweets not giving a damn about the truth. He should be barred from public office if he knows these thing to be false, and also barred if he is in fact an idiot, as these statements on the NHS have been proven to be false for years, yet he continues to peddle the lies.
Andrew RT Davies must be the only person in the UK who believes that “Brexit has been good for our NHS”.
Perhaps the editors at Nation Cymru can ask Andrew to write an article in which he can tell us all about how the NHS has improved for everybody since we left the EU?
I agree, and in particular he should be asked “How many NHS staff across the UK have decided to return to their home or other EU countries since Brexit?”
The first and most important rule of Brexit is to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
Doubtless if he agrees it has not improved he will say it is because of Labour’s bad management. (I see lack of money, bad management, central political micro management, and a lack of willingness to ask what we expect from health services and an openness to thinking about how to do it right across the UK. I’d like to ask what we’d do if starting from scratch though, why nobody else does it our way, what works best, whether we can get close to what we’d like starting from where we are. The ability of the DAs to be radical… Read more »
Andrew RT Davies, was asked several months ago, by ITV Wales news, “Does BJ lie?” Davies’s answer, you’ve guessed it NO. Says it all really. He’s a beaut.
dont blame the Tories. People have a brain and obviously used it and voted out of the EU.
you admitting that most voters are as thick as the arrogant bigoted English Tories. What a pathetic excuse. We all have a brain. People should have used it and thought what they were voting for before blindly voted out !!
We are from planet earth this CRETIN is either on a different planet or he is smoking something like Morocon Woodbines
Mick Antoniw asks : “But you know this is an inaccurate and distorted story. Are you really so desperate electorally?”
May I answer on R2D2’s behalf “Yes!”
Now Andrew RT Davies, the so-called £350 million per week quoted on the Brexut bull**** bus you say had been given to the NHS was a total lie. What is it with the Welsh Conservatives and Trumpian alternative facts? Truth: When a memberstate of the EU Britain gave £248 million per week not £350 with the remainder given back in a rebate. Lies more lies and damned lies from our little Englanders. The reality is. Wales faces an uphill struggle to sell its wares around the globe, especially to the EU, and to facilitate good through our ports thanks to… Read more »
No doubt RT is a complete idiot, but people need to look through the smog and do some research on Wes Streeting, he is not going to be the NHS saviour, he has already said there is no more money for nurses, he has aligned himself with tory policy, he favours private health companies getting more involved in the NHS, Lord Mandelson was picking up Streeting’s office expenses, and we all know where Mandy’s loyalties are. Wes Streeting is as dangerous as any tory mp.
sorry my bad, not Mandelson but Mendelsohn, easy mistake, they’re all corrupt scum with their snouts in the trough.
350M per week may well be spent on the NHS but its going to the private sector and Tory mates and the NHS are being charged for it, just like 37B that Dido Harding spent which was also charged to the NHS. That’s why they can’t give the nurses a pay rise.