Pro-Brexit MP, Daniel Kawczynski, has provoked the wrath of hundreds on Twitter after tweeting a blatant lie in order to add to the anti-EU sentiment.
Kawcynski, who is of Polish descent and moved to the UK from Poland when he was 7, claimed that the UK did not receive any money under the Marshall Plan, whilst complaining about the attitude of the EU towards the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom, in fact, received 26% of the total amount paid by the United States under the Marshall Plan. The United Kingdom received $3.75 Billion dollars (around $26 Billion when adjusted for inflation), whilst France was the second highest recipient receiving about 18% of the total amount and West Germany in third receiving 11% of the funds freed by the United States.
The Marshall Plan was a United States initiative in which they provided money to Western European countries in order to allow them to rebuild following World War Two. It also had the secondary aim of reducing the influence of communism in Europe. The Soviet Union had their own version of the Marshall Plan, dubbed the ‘Molotov Plan’ which gave aid to countries within the eastern bloc.
Other times Brexiteers have not been quite honest about the EU…
£350 Million per week for the NHS
Boris Johnson backed the now infamous £350 Million Pound more a week for the NHS if we leave the EU and continued to run with it. This lie was so misleading (and widely believed) that the chair of the UK statistics authority wrote to Boris Johnson stating that it is a clear misuse of official statistics.[ The Office for Budget Responsibility currently estimates that by the early 2020s the UK government will be £15 Billion a year worse off than it is now, so you would be forgiven for not understanding where this extra 350 million a week for the NHS would come from.
The United Kingdom is Liable for Eurozone Bailouts
Vote Leave (in a post full of Boris Johnson quotes), in a now deleted (but archived) page on their website, posted in June 2016 an article which stated that the United Kingdom would BE liable for bailing out the countries in the Eurozone. Council Regulation (EU) 2015/1360, which came into force in August 2015 essentially guaranteeing that the United Kingdom (and any other non-euro using member state) would be “fully compensated for any liability they incur as a result of any failure by the beneficiary Member State to repay the financial assistance in accordance with its terms.” While this point of law may have been unclear at one point, during and following the referendum it was quite clear that this assertion made by vote leave, was false.
The EU is preventing the United Kingdom from legislating for safer lorry designs
As recently as July 2018, Boris Johnson was still pushing a false narrative about the EU. In his letter in which he resigned as Foreign Secretary, Johnson said that while he was Mayor of London he wanted to push for legislation which improved visibility in lorries but was stopped short and told that the United Kingdom had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.
What Boris didn’t say is that during his second term as Mayor of London, in 2014, the EU moved to change the law on this and David Cameron’s government opposed it, which Boris was “deeply concerned” about.
