Vote Leave: Brexit Would Bring Billions To U.K.

27/02/2016_Brexit
A car sticker with a logo encouraging people to leave the EU is seen on a car, February 27, 2016. A leading "Brexit" campaigner has said Britain would gain billions from leaving the bloc. Phil Noble/Reuters

A prominent campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union has claimed the U.K. would gain billions if it left the EU.

Dominic Cummings, chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign has said that he couldn't estimate the precise gains the U.K. would make after leaving but there would be "a lot of money to go round" to spend on domestic priorities like the NHS.

As the lead campaign for Britain to leave the EU in its membership referendum on June 23, Vote Leave estimates that the EU costs Britain £350 million every week. Cummings defended this figure and said that "tens of billions" of savings could come the U.K.'s way on top of this if it left the bloc, thanks to reduced energy costs and freedom from EU procurement rules.

"There are huge amounts of ways in which the EU costs us money," he said. "At some point in the campaign we will be totting this all up and we will send you a copy of the full bill."

Cummings was speaking during a tense hearing with the Commons Treasury Select Committee, in which he clashed repeatedly with chair Andrew Tyrie and other committee members.

At one point Tyrie said that Cummings's promises of money sounded like "Aladin's Cave," and Helen Goodman, a Labour MP, took such issue with his evasive answers that she reminded him that "parliamentary sovereignty" was supposed to be a key focus of his campaign―to general laughter in the room.

Dominic Cummings looking like a maverick cop who's just turned round the camera in the interview room pic.twitter.com/XqWcsUTJso

— Josh Lowe (@JeyyLowe) April 20, 2016

Genuinely alarmed at the behaviour of Dominic Cummings who runs Vote Leave, He seems to have no grip on reality at all. #StrongerIn

— Helen Goodman (@HelenGoodmanMP) April 20, 2016

Dominic Cummings of @vote_leave is coming across as evasive at the Treasury Committee - he seems to be willfully misunderstanding Qs #EUref

— Adam Smith (@adamtimsmith) April 20, 2016

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About the writer


Josh is a staff writer covering Europe, including politics, policy, immigration and more.

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