It was on the side of a bus, it was on the lips of Brexiteer politicians - £ 350m a week would go to the NHS if we voted to leave the European Union.
Except, as soon as we did vote to leave, politicians backtracked and Nigel Farage denied ever making the promise. The Leave campaign quickly erased the promise from its website.
In her Brexit speech last month, Theresa May failed to mention the NHS at all.
In fact, last October May said the NHS will be getting no extra money. This is despite 40 per cent of hospitals issuing an alert within the first week of 2017, and by the second week, 20 hospitals had declared the highest level of alert, which usually means they have no beds free and patients arriving at A&E will need to go to another hospital.
As many as one in six A&E departments could face closure or downgrading, according to latest analysis.
Dominic Cummings was campaign director for Vote Leave, and he’s just admitted we wouldn’t have voted for Brexit if it weren’t for the promise of NHS funding.
He wrote in an article for the Spectator:
Pundits and MPs kept saying ‘why isn’t Leave arguing about the economy and living standards’. They did not realise that for millions of people, £350m/NHS was about the economy and living standards – that’s why it was so effective. It was clearly the most effective argument not only with the crucial swing fifth but with almost every demographic.
Even with UKIP voters it was level-pegging with immigration.
Would we have won without immigration? No.
Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No.
People have said they voted for Brexit because of the NHS:
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