Brexit leaders accused of backtracking on pledges
Major “Leave” campaign leaders who succeeded in pulling the UK out of the European Union (EU) have been accused of backtracking on their campaign promises.
Iain Duncan Smith, former UK secretary of state for work and pensions, who was a key advocate of leaving the EU, stirred controversy on Sunday after denying pledges that the country’s new leadership was going to channel the country’s £350 million EU contributions to the National Health Service (NHS) instead.
Despite being photographed and filmed next to the promise on a campaign bus, Smith told BBC that the figure was merely an “extrapolation.”
“The £350 million was an extrapolation on the £19.1 billion - that’s the total amount of money we gave back to the European Union,” he noted.
“What we actually said was a significant amount of it would go to the NHS. It’s essentially down to the government, but I believe that is what was pledged and that’s what should happen,” Smith noted.
“It’s not a promise broken. I never said that during the course of the election,” he asserted, adding that the NHS was one of the many recipients of the funding.
The former secretary’s response was met with an online uproar, with users accusing him of being a liar.
The issue of post-Brexit NHS funding made the headline again two days ago, when UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage publicly disavowed the figure.
“It wasn’t one of my adverts,” he said in an interview on Friday, adding that the number may have been a “mistake.”
On Thursday, British people voted to quit the EU in a referendum, which saw Britain breaking away from the bloc by a 52-48 margin.
After the release of the final results, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation and said he would leave office in fall.
He said it would be up to his successor, who is expected to be appointed before the Conservative Party conference in October, to start the negotiations for exit from the union.
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