Lies, damn lies and statistics...

Evan Davies said, on Radio Four last night, that he views with suspicion, anyone who is certain that they are right about complex issues.  I agree with that.  I am a Leaver, but I am not certain that I am right.  But I am finding that a considerable number of Remainers are worryingly certain that they are right.

And I should know. Most of my friends and family are Remainers!

An argument that I hear repeatedly is that the Referendum result was not valid because “the people were lied to during the campaign”.  I presume that they mean by the Leave side.  But whenever I ask what these lies were, it comes down to one lie: that we will have £350 million a week available to spend on the NHS.  I am sure there were many other lies, but this seems to be the only one people can think of.  Let’s just look at that for a moment.  In 2014 (an arbitrary choice of year), our gross contribution to the EU was close to £360 million per week (source: fullfact.org).  So the figure on the bus was not invented.  There is, at least, some basis for it.  But it ignores our rebate.  After our rebate, the net contribution was £275 million per week (all figures from fullfact.org).  This would have been an entirely defensible figure to put on the bus.  Many Remainers point out, quite fairly, that the EU spends money in the UK and that this further reduces the sum available.  This is entirely true, and the EU expenditure in the UK amounts to an estimated £86 million per week.  But, and this is important, we don’t control how that money is spent.  The EU controls that expenditure.  So it is arguable that we would gain control over £275 million per week that we don’t currently control, and this could be directed towards the NHS if we so decide.

So the Leave campaign used a figure of £350 million to gain attention when the defensible figure was £275 million. Are we seriously saying that, had the bus said, “Save £275 million per week for the NHS” rather than £350 million, it would have changed anyone’s vote?

But more important than the question of whether lies were told is the question of who told them.  And here we come to a fundamental difference between a referendum and an election.  If a political party in an election makes a claim that it either knows to be false, or could not reasonably know to be true, and if that claim is indeed false and does affect the result of the election, then the election should be declared void.  But if some bloke I meet in the pub tells me that Labour is planning to steal my house, and I am stupid enough to believe him, and this influences my vote, then I can hardly argue that my vote should be reconsidered when I discover that this was not true.

The referendum was not an election.  Both dominant parties abdicated their responsibilities to lead, and split off into different factions.  There were Leavers and Remainers in both parties.  And then we had a vast number of pressure groups all trying to influence our decision.  The CBI had a view;  the IOD had a view;  the NHS had a view; the Chambers of Commerce had a view;  my mum had a view; the bloke in the pub had a view;  and, bizarrely, the British Government had a view even though the governing party did not.  Most of these were for Remain, by the way.  But there were also groups arguing for Leave, including UKIP and two or three campaign groups. Amongst all this noise would have been opinions, mistakes, exaggerations, ignorance, assertions and downright lies.  In this environment, each and every one of us had a clear responsibility to challenge, question and check and then make up our own minds.  The Remain cause cannot argue that because it has found one example of a stupid, or false, statement, or even several, made by groups not standing for election, that the result should be invalidated.  If that argument were sustained, then it would be an argument against all referendums.  Which, come to think about it……