Jo Swinson under fire over claims of Remain bonus for UK as BBC host grills Layla Moran
JO SWINSON came under fire for suggesting the UK would receive a £50 billion bonus should the country choose to stay in the European Union as BBC host Mishal Husain confronted Liberal Democrats MP Layla Moran on the number.
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Jo Swinson has claimed the UK would be able to invest a £50 billion Remain bonus on public services and infrastructure if she put an end to Brexit as the next Prime Minister. Ms Swinson suggested staying in the European Union would help the British economy grow faster and result in higher tax receipts to spend in Britain. But BBC Today programme Mishal Husain warned the Liberal Democrats' leader should not discuss the bonus as fact while grilling incumbent Oxford West MP Layla Moran.
The BBC presenter said: "Jo Swinson has said we know that that Remain bonus would be £50 billion that we can spend. How does she know it would be £50 billion?"
Ms Moran explained the calculation is based on a series of estimates and forecasts, to which Ms Husain hit back: "Ok, but when she talked about the Remain bonus, it didn’t have any of those caveats.
"‘We know that the Remain bonus would be £50 billion,’ that’s an exact sum of money. We don’t know, do we?
"Because of exactly what you’re saying, the projections on how the economy would grow and be affected in different scenarios."
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The BBC presenter added: "So we don’t know that there would be a Remain bonus, precisely a £50 billion one.
"We don’t know and she shouldn’t have talked about it as something definitive."
But undaunted, Ms Moran insisted the so-called Remain bonus could be "more" than £50 billion as she defended the forecast.
She said: "It could be more than that. You need to look carefully at people’s spending plans and all we can do, as with any economic forecast, is use independent, verifiable numbers
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"It’s a prediction. It’s a prediction based on – there’s a range of economic forecasts.
"We’ve purposely taken the most conservative estimates of that and it comes predicated on the fact we also know, by stopping Brexit, will be an uptick to our economy.
"There is no independent forecaster that doesn’t suggest that’s true."
Jo Swinson announced last month her party will immediately seek to end Brexit should she secure a majority to form a government at the December 12 election.
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The Lib Dems leader reiterated her plans as she appeared in an individual leaders' interview on ITV after the broadcaster choose to hold a head-to-head debate with only Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn during prime time.
Asked about her first act in Number 10 should she secure a majority to build a Government, Ms Swinson said: "I would revoke Article 50.
"That’s something the Prime Minister has the power to do and I would do that on day one. It’s effectively a simple letter, that can be sent by email so it’s a very simple procedure to do that."
She also suggested she would "listen to people" to reunite Britons after three years of division due to Brexit: "It’s really important to what people are saying.
"There’s no doubt that Brexit is an issue which people feel really strong about on both sides. There’s also not just one reason people voted the way they did – there’s a lot of people I’ve spoken to who have told me the economy is not working as it should, that they have to work too hard and they still can’t go on.
"That’s something that needs to change."