3 ms·
Comparing £1b to the EU GDP per month and not the UK one is a bit disingenuous.
by monadgonad 7y ago
Comparing £1b to the EU GDP per month and not the UK one is a bit disingenuous.
- reallydontask 7y agotrue but even against the UK GDP is not that much really, is it? UK GDP is $2.6 trillion, or about $200Bn per month, so a 1Bn a month is not a massive amount. The amount is in and of itself irrelevant. What really matters is the ratio of that amount to the benefit the UK gets from free trade with the EU.
- ben_w 7y ago> The amount is in and of itself irrelevant. What really matters is the ratio of that amount to the benefit the UK gets from free trade with the EU. I only recently learned about the mistake-theory/conflict-theory dichotomy. I think the benefits don’t matter to a conflict theorists, only if insert-tribal-leader-here likes it. (There are at least four relevant tribes that support Brexit, at least five that don’t, and in one case they share a leader who has been carefully trying to keep both sides on his team). I am almost entirely a mistake theorist on that axis.
- DougBTX 7y agoYes, better to compare to UK gov budget in the linked article. So £12B vs £772B, or 1.5%. Also the the £12B doesn’t include the rebate or other benefits, so the real value is less.
- Swenrekcah 7y agoI think both numbers are useful. £1b/month would be 0.57 of UK’s 2018 gdp. But knowing nothing about the £1bn number except that it came from a still-brexiteer I can’t give it much credibility.
- ben_w 7y agoI should’ve mentioned that the tweet in question demonstrated a belief that the money is of substantial importance to the EU, which in turn is part of a broader meme that the EU is reliant on the UK and would be bankrupted by its departure. My comparison is part of an ongoing frustration I have that so many leavers not only care about the money but also don’t understand the scale difference between the UK budget contributions and the EU economy.