Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage both called for the discussion to be grounded in facts. But both made claims that didn’t stack up.
UKIP's Nigel Farage and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg went head-to-head on Wednesday night when they debated Britain's membership of the European Union.
Both politicians bombarded the audience with facts and figures, making it hard to work out who was telling the truth. So BuzzFeed asked the independent fact-checking organisation Full Fact to analyse some of the key assertions made by the two politicians during their debate.
BBC Two
Nick Clegg said 7% of UK law comes from Brussels; Nigel Farage said it is 70%.
Neither is quite correct: The House of Commons Library research Nick Clegg quotes says, "It is possible to justify any measure between 15% and 50% or thereabouts.”
Nigel Farage's 70% seems to be based upon something said by one EU Commissioner, which turned out to be a misunderstanding.
fullfact.org / Via Full Fact
Nigel Farage said the EU has a "£55 million membership fee".
This is only correct if you look at the costs, and not the benefits. £55 million per day is the amount given to EU institutions, but after we deduct the money we get back it's closer to £33m per day.
That's if we look at contributions from both government and businesses; if we look only at government contributions, the net contribution falls again to £24 million per day (£8.6 billion per year).
fullfact.org / Via Full Fact
Nick Clegg said the EU is the largest economy in the world.
He's correct: If you treat the 28 nations of the EU as a single 'economy' it just pips the United States to the title.
Via Full Fact
