BBC election debate: 6 misleading claims Boris Johnson made on live TV

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have clashed in the final head-to-head debate of the 2019 election campaign.

The pair faced off in an hour-long challenge on the BBC over terror, tax, the NHS and their plans for spending.

As usual Boris Johnson made a string of claims about both Labour’s claims and his own. But as usual, not all of those claims were in fact true.

From Labour’s tax plans to the party’s record on security, Mr Johnson trotted out a string of claims which just don’t entirely stand up to scrutiny.

We’ve debunked his usual whoppers about 50,000 more nurses and 40 new hospitals before – you can read our explanations here.

But here are six new claims he made that left us scratching our heads.

On Labour’s tax plans

WHAT HE SAID: “I think it’s quite incredible that Mr Corbyn should claim that people on £20,000 a year are amongst the richest in society and therefore deserve to be clobbered by his tax increases.”

THE FACTS:Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to raise Income Tax only on people who earn more than £80,000, not £20,000. It’s true that the IFS think tank has said that, in or order to afford Labour’s spending plans, at some point lower earners will be affected in some way. But it’s not clear where this £20,000 figure has come from – and £80k earners are in the top 5% of income tax payers in the UK.

On Diane Abbott disbanding MI5

WHAT HE SAID: “He’s proposing to put in a Home Secretary in the form of Diane Abbott who’s called for MI5 to be disbanded.”

THE FACTS: Diane Abbott signed an Early Day Motion calling for the abolition of MI5 in 1989, but said more than two years ago that her views had changed. She said in May 2017: “At that time I and a lot of people felt MI5 needed reforming. It has since been reformed and of course I would not call for its abolition now.”

On a Brexit deal being ready to go

WHAT HE SAID: Asked ‘you don’t know you could do a trade deal with the EU’, he replied: “On the contrary, we have a fantastic deal. It is there, ready to go.”

THE FACTS: The deal Boris Johnson has ‘ready to go’ is a withdrawal, not a trade deal. The latter is much tougher – one between the EU and Canada took seven years – and if we don’t get it by the end of December 2020, we’ll still leave the EU with no deal.

On getting Brexit out of Parliament

WHAT HE SAID: “The great beauty of this deal is it gets Brexit done, gets it out of Parliament, stops the wrangling, stops the chaos and moves us forward.”

THE FACTS: In February 2019 the government promised a role for Parliament in scrutinising future Free Trade Agreements to be struck around the world after Brexit. That suggests Brexit will be discussed in Parliament for many more years to come. 

On the case of Usman Khan

WHAT HE SAID: “There was no parole or probation involved in this. He was released automatically and there was nothing any parole or probation officer could do about that. That was the nature of the sentence.”

THE FACTS: While it’s true Usman Khan was released automatically without a parole hearing – which tragically allowed him free to kill, and is something that wouldn’t happen if he’d been given the same sentence under current rules – the Press Association reports there would have been some probation service involvement. As a PA explainer put it: “Khan’s sentence was an extended sentence, meaning he would have to spend an extra five years on licence after he was freed from prison. This meant he would have been supervised by the probation service for the 13 years after his release.”

On bringing back the nurses’ bursary

WHAT HE SAID: “We’re bringing back the £5,000 bursary”.

THE FACTS: Launching the Tory manifesto, Boris Johnson vowed to give nurses a £5,000 to £8,000 a year maintenance grant. But this doesn’t “bring back” the old system. Unlike under the original bursary scheme – which the Tories scrapped in 2015 – nurses in training will still have to pay tuition fees on their courses.

WHAT HE SAID: Delaying Brexit is “costing this country an extra billion pounds a month”. (Nov 18) THE FACTS: This cost is only when compared to a no-deal Brexit, in which the UK refuses to pay any divorce bill.

WHAT HE SAID: Labour “would wreck this economy with a £1.2trillion spending splurge.” (Nov 18) THE FACTS: The £1.2tn estimate wrongly claims a four-day week would begin on Day One, and counts disputed estimates and conference policies unlikely to be in Labour’s manifesto.

WHAT HE SAID: “Parliament first voted to approve this deal, and then voted for delay.” (Nov 6) THE FACTS: Parliament did not vote to approve the PM’s Brexit deal – MPs only passed it through its first Commons hurdle in principle before crucial amendments.

WHAT HE SAID: “Corbyn would spend the whole of 2020 having two referendums. One on Scotland.” (Nov 6) THE FACTS: Jeremy Corbyn has said he would not allow a referendum on Scottish independence in 2020.

WHAT HE SAID: Health spending boost is “the biggest increase in modern memory in the NHS.” (Nov 15) THE FACTS: The IFS says the Tories’ rise is 3.2% a year in real terms. Under the last Labour government it was 3.6% before dropping to 1.3% between 2009/10 and 2018/19.

WHAT HE SAID: “The Labour party have a policy of zero control” on immigration. (Nov 15) THE FACTS: Members voted at Labour’s conference to remove several controls, but not all controls, and it is thought the policy did not survive intact into the manifesto.

WHAT HE SAID: Jeremy Corbyn would “whack” Corporation Tax “straight back up to the highest levels in Europe.” (Nov 18) THE FACTS: Labour’s previous pledges to restore Corporation Tax to 26% would still be lower than France (32%), Portugal (32%), Germany (30%), Belgium (30%), Greece (28%) and Italy (28%), according to the OECD.

WHAT HE SAID: “This government has put far more into flood defences than the previous Labour government”. (Nov 15) THE FACTS: While the annual figure is now higher than under Labour, spending plunged under the first three full years of the Tories from 2011/12.

WHAT HE SAID: London murder rate was “fewer than 100 for several years running” when he was mayor (Nov 15) THE FACTS: Official figures compiled by the BBC show there was only one year in Boris Johnson’s eight as mayor where the homicide rate dropped below 100. It hit 94 in 2014.

WHAT HE SAID: “I am very proud of what we have done in the last 108 days or whatever it is, 108 days or so.” (Nov 6) THE FACTS: At the time Boris Johnson had been Prime Minister for 105 days, not 108.

For the full list of lies click here.