20 June 2016 Comment

Live factchecking David Cameron's BBC Question Time special

By Amy Hawkins • 2 mins

We are in the final days of the EU referendum campaign. After Michael Gove's Question Time special last week, in which he made the case for leaving the EU, David Cameron was on air last night, trying to persuade people to vote to remain. We live factchecked his claims — here's what you might have missed.

The economy

Some economy claims came up first. David Cameron claimed that "our economy will suffer if we leave" and that "almost half of what we sell overseas goes [to the single market]".

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Mr Cameron also cited the analysis of expert organisations about the economic consequences of leaving the EU. "The Institute for Fiscal Studies say that we would lose between £20 - 40 billion in our public finances," Mr Cameron claimed. He also said this in last week's Prime Minister's Questions, so we were prepared:

The process of leaving the EU

Mr Cameron repeated that a vote to leave the EU would be "irreversible". "I think if we vote to leave, I don't think there's any prospect of rejoining," he said.

We had already asked Professor Steve Peers from the University of Essex how the process of leaving the EU would work. Here's his explanation:

Trade

An audience member brought up the topic of EU trade. Mr Cameron claimed that "80% of our economy is services", which is correct, according to ONS figures:

EU immigration

It wasn't long before immigration took centre stage for the debate. Mr Cameron answered questions about EU net migration, and what benefits EU migrants can claim. 

Cameron says EU jobseekers can't claim unemployment benefit. Factually untrue. After three months, they can.

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) June 19, 2016

The discussion moved on to whether the UK could adopt a points style system like Australia.

 

Is the EU deal legally binding?

Mr Cameron got a question about whether the other EU member states could veto the UK's renegotiation deal.

Turkey

Next up was the topic of whether Turkey would be joining the EU, and whether the UK would veto this. David Dimbeley quoted Mr Cameron as previously having said: "In terms of Turkish membership, I very much support that". 

 

The EU's share of the world economy

"Our single market is a bigger market than the whole of China," Mr Cameron claimed. 

The UK's contribution to the EU

The final question of the evening was about the UK's contribution to the EU. "We [France, Britain, and Germany] all pay in more than we get out...but we get more out in terms of jobs and growth, than we put in," Mr Cameron claimed.

And that's all from us — we'll be live factchecking the BBC Wembley debate tomorrow at 8pm on BBC One.

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Live factchecking Michael Gove's BBC Question Time special

The EU referendum, factchecked