25 October 2019 | Facts and news from Full Fact

FACT CHECK

The Brexit deal hasn't "passed Parliament"

Following Tuesday night’s parliamentary vote, the Conservative Party claimed repeatedly on both Facebook and Twitter that “Boris’s Brexit deal has passed Parliament”.

It hasn’t.

The House of Commons passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill’s “second reading”. But this is just one early stage in the process of passing a Bill. It will then move onto “committee stage”, where MPs have the chance to examine the Bill in detail and add amendments to it.

It’s not helpful for the governing party to misrepresent the way legislation is passed in the UK, which is already a complex process that can be hard to follow, and risks unnecessary confusion among citizens.
This is wrong and unhelpful

 

UPDATE: Our fact check has since been featured on the front page of the Evening Standard.

 
Can you help us call out false claims? Become a supporter

People who create and spread information owe it to all of us to back up what they say with evidence. This shouldn’t be up for discussion. 

But false claims continue to be shared by our public figures. We all deserve better than that. And we need your help to call it out when it’s most harmful.

With a potential election imminent, the stakes are high. Our supporters keep us scrutinising the most harmful false claims, and calling out those who make them.

Can you become a supporter to keep up the pressure on those who share false claims?

Yes, I'll help call out false claims

IMPACT

Layla Moran corrects claim about impact of Boris Johnson’s deal on the economy

Last week Liberal Democrat MPs including Layla Moran said that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal would be as bad for the economy as the financial crash. This was based on a claim that it would lead to a 6.7% drop in GDP (that’s the total value of goods and services) and a 6.4% drop in real wages.

This is misleading. Government analysis said that the economy would still grow under the new deal—but that GDP would be up to 6.7% lower and real wages up to 6.4% lower after 15 years—than it would be if we remained in the EU. 

We pushed for a correction from the MPs who made this claim, and Ms Moran replied to us in this video:



We thank Ms Moran for her prompt and detailed response. It's important that public figures aim to get their facts right, and correct any mistakes they make.

We hope her colleagues Jo Swinson and Chuka Umunna will follow her example.  
Here's the original fact check

FACT CHECK

People’s Vote march attendance in the hundreds of thousands, not millions

Viral tweets have claimed that there were 2 to 2.2 million people on Saturday's People's Vote march, citing Sky News and German TV as sources.

There is no evidence of either Sky News or German TV reporting these figures. Experts in crowd science told us that the crowd was most likely in the low hundreds of thousands.

We fact checked similar claims after a People’s Vote march earlier this year.
 
Here's the headcount

FACT CHECKS

Also this week...

JOBS

Don't miss your chance to join the Full Fact team

We’re looking for a new Media Officer and Social Media Officer to help us reach millions more people with our work. Not long left to apply - both roles close on Monday!
Apply here
Thank you very much for your support and have a great weekend from the team at Full Fact.
Follow us Follow us
Donate Donate
Like us Like us
Follow us Follow us
You can find out how we're funded here. 
Copyright © Full Fact 2019 - All rights reserved

Our mailing address is:
2 Carlton Gardens, London, SW1Y 5AA

We use Mailchimp to send you our emails and to see which articles are most popular. Read our privacy policy or Mailchimp's privacy policy

unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences