Vote Leave bus
The Vote Leave campaign used a large red battle bus in the lead up to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.
A decal on the side of the bus made the false claim and following pledge that "We send the EU £350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead",[1] accompanied with the slogan "Let's take back control".
[1] Cummings has credited the words on the bus for the Leave campaign's victory, and 42 percent of people who had heard of the claim still believed it was true by 2018.
The bus was a Starliner luxury team coach[2] which was manufactured by German company Neoplan, with its production beginning in Poland and finishing in Germany.
[5] The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign[9] also stated that if the UK were not in the EU at the time, the bus would have cost £456,000, more than its actual £400,000 price,[8] due to increased tariffs.
[7] On 18 July 2016, The Daily Telegraph reported that Greenpeace had parked the bus outside the Houses of Parliament and had then rebranded its text with the words "time for truth" and the hashtag "#comeclean" and stating that it was "covering up the bold-faced lie" with "messages of hope".
Text on the side of the bus, both in English and French, stated that Monese users would be permitted to transfer up to €350 million between the UK and the eurozone for no fee.
[4] While Dominic Cummings is credited with the creation of the figure on the bus,[3] which began its tour on 11 May 2016,[5] Gisela Stuart, co-chair of Vote Leave, said on BBC Radio 4 on 15 April that "Every week we send £350m to Brussels.
[13] Dominic Cummings intended that use of the figure would stoke up arguments concerning future payments to the EU, which would be beneficial for the Vote Leave campaign.
[16] Full Fact, a fact-checking organisation, argued in June that the £350 million estimation did not take into account Britain's rebate, which had been negotiated under Margaret Thatcher in 1984 to be significantly lower than the usual 1% of national gross domestic product paid by other member states.
[3] On 5 October 2016, Craig Oliver, former spin doctor for David Cameron, criticised BBC News for continuing to show images of the bus after the claim had been debunked.
"[1] In September 2017, Boris Johnson mentioned the figure in an article he authored for The Daily Telegraph, writing that "once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350 million per week.
We grossly underestimated the sum over which we would be able to take back control", and also argued that the UK's contributions to the EU were already at £362m per week in 2017–18 and would annually rise to £410m, £431m, and then to £438m by 2020–21.
[21] Jean-Claude Juncker, then president of the European Commission, said in May 2024 that, "in hindsight, failing to rebut the claim that the UK sent £350 million per week to Brussels without drawing any benefit, was a mistake".
The bus visited the houses of Parliament on 7 December, before going to Islington North, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and Maidenhead, constituencies of leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn, as well as prime ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May respectively.
