£188 million is absolutely not "slightly different" to the much-publicised £350 million claim. I can understand overlap between £8/9bn and £10bn, because they're already stupidly large numbers and would fit what you're saying there, but not the much larger "scare sum", so to speak.
So you complain if Boris uses an obvious tongue in cheek fib/exaggeration.
And then you complain if Lamont uses a figure closer to the more accepted one.
If there is any head-in-sand attitude that describes it.
Nobody actually believed Boriss figure (I certainly didn't) but he did it for two reasons:
Firstly so that it would be repeated over and over again by various people thereby recruiting more Brexiteers.
Secondly, he was talking about what the
potential could be if a) some future Europhile PM decides to give back our rebate and b) the EU decides to cancel certain EU-funded British projects in the future.
No one knows how the EU will react if we vote Remain, but they might very well decide to punish us for having the temerity to have a vote at all (and knowing there wont be another one for decades).
Our rebate is worth £5bn a year (call it £5.2) and that makes £100m per week. (Hope I have the decimal point in the right place
)
Suddenly, with our rebate gone, the £188m becomes £288m. Then EU projects get cancelled and the £288 becomes £300+.
Like I said, the £350mpw is the
potential we could pay.
And lets not forget Blair gave up a big chunk of our rebate (?£2bn pa) some years ago in order to try and buy his way into becoming the EU Head Honcho. (Fortunately for all of us it failed. But it still cost us).
Yes, he was wrong to use the £350m figure. I am just surprised so many Remainers made so much of it