Claims by a pro-Brexit group that leaving the EU single market and the customs union would boost Britain’s economy by as much as £24 billion a year have been dismissed as fantasy by the Liberal Democrats and a top economist, the Guardian reported Wednesday.
The Change Britain group, a successor to Vote Leave whose supporters include British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Labour MP Gisela Stuart, claimed in research released Tuesday the U.K. would save £10.35 billion from contributions to the EU budget and £1.2 billion from scrapping âburdensome regulations,â and gain âbetween £8.5 billion and £19.8 billionâ from new trade deals after Brexit.
Jonathan Portes, former chief economist at the Cabinet Office, said the figures were misleading.
âAdding increased exports and reduced government expenditure is literally meaningless. The results mean nothing. It isnât research, itâs junk,â Portes said, according to the Guardian. “Anybody who adds together increased government revenue literally has no idea what they are doing.”
Tim Farron, leader of the pro-EU Lib Dems, said Change Britain’s estimates were âfantasy figures.”
âTodayâs claims are just the latest in a procession of lies pushed out by the usual suspects who are desperate for a hard Brexit that will rip Britain out of the single market,â he said. âLeave campaigners spent weeks gallivanting around the U.K. in a big red bus with a promise of more money for our NHS emblazoned on the side … To now present the public with an even bigger made-up number is shameless and these scaremongers should take a look at themselves in the mirror.â