Barnier also compared Reform leader Nigel Farage to French politician Marine Le Pen. He said: “We have our own Farage. It is Mrs Le Pen. The same populism, the same lies, the same false promises.”
Asked by Kuenssberg to clarify what he was referring to with his accusation of lies, Barnier said “for instance, when Mr Farage and Mr Johnson promised the UK people to get back [£350] million per week, it was not true, it was not possible. It was a lie”.
The Vote Leave campaign, of which Boris Johnson became a key figure, has been criticised previously for the slogan on the side of their campaign bus that said Britain sent £350m a week to the EU, adding: “Let’s fund our NHS instead”.
Johnson said in 2017 that “once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350m per week. It would be a fine thing as many of us have pointed out if a lot of that money went on the NHS”.
Critics have said that the £350m per week was an approximate sum which represents a “gross contribution” and did not take into account the UK’s £75m-a-week rebate nor the EU’s investments in the UK.
Johnson has since defended the claim, saying the £350m was based on the UK’s gross contribution to the EU, and was in fact an underestimate as UK contributions were due to rise.
In his memoirs published in 2024, Johnson said EU money spent in the UK was not “democratically controlled by the British people”, and “even if the net figure was only £175m, that was still a hell of a lot of money”.
Farage, who led Leave UK and was not part of the Vote Leave campaign so not connected to the £350m claim, said: “It is the same old Barnier – arrogant, out of touch and a bully. He vindicates our decision to leave every time he opens his mouth.”
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