I’m sceptical of the Daily Mail’s reporting but if this article is accurate that is genuinely insane and would make British people significantly worse off. That said, I will reserve judgment until their actual manifesto
circleribbey on
Ridiculous. The U.K. currently has the fourth largest foreign aid spending in the world. It’s fine.
The UN targets 0.15% of gdp.
At 2.5% that would put the U.K. at the top by a significant margin. As a percentage of gdp we’d be giving 5x more than Luxembourg who is the current leader
At 2.5% of gdp we’d be giving ca. 70 billion a year. This is nearly what every EU nation combined gives in foreign aid put together.
IrrelevantPiglet on
Foreign aid is mostly a tax giveaway to British businesses. They don’t just hand a cheque out to a foreign nation, the aid gets spent on British products that get shipped out to wherever they’re needed.
It’s a very useful policy for giving the economy a little shot in the arm while also potentially establishing new foreign markets. But it’s not something where more automatically equals better. At some point you’ll hit diminishing returns, and that will probably be a lot sooner than 2.5%.
alderstars on
I’m not agreeing with this proposal if it is accurate and representative, however I did a stint working with DFID back in the day and I’ve come to understand that there’s a huge deficit in public understanding of how foreign aid actually benefits the UK, the soft power associated with it, and how stabilising regions is beneficial for the UK and EU. Obviously from a moral perspective it’s hugely important for the recipients. But also consider that China has moved into the vacuum created by the withdrawal of USAID etc and will reap the benefits of that positive association for a long time, politicly, strategically, economically
It definitely has huge advantages for both donor and recipient.
Bit more nuance there than just “2.5% to foreign aid”.
There’s an argument behind climate finance, since climate change has a global impact, protecting ourselves means helping other countries decarbonise. Reasonable people can disagree on its effectiveness or how much is appropriate but as a concept its not entirely selfless.
Sonchay on
There are some benefits to foreign aid that go underreported (such as vaccination abroad reducing the risk of diseases to British travellers and being brought to the UK) but 2.5% is nuts, that’s in the region of 75 billion pounds. If this were invested at home it would make an enormous amount of impact. For example our justice system is currently imploding and only recieves <0.5% GDP, we could rebuild the system to the point it is World-leading for that kind of cash. Or you could eliminate Stamp Duty Land Tax entirely (creating a more agile workforce and allowing housing to be distributed more efficiently) for just 14 Billion, leaving enough left over to create roughly enough new public sector median income jobs for every [counted by current methodology] unemployed person in the country!
0ttoChriek on
The best way to end migration – economic and asylum – is to make the countries people are migrating from more appealing to remain in. That would involve foreign aid to promote development and stability.
Unfortunately, it would likely take more than 2.5% of GDP, from all developed countries, to make much of an impact. Could it be done? Yes. Will the rich ever allow it? Absolutely not.
[deleted] on
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Harmless_Drone on
Just to make a point: if we want less people fleeing shit hole countries that are in civil war or suffering persecution or whatever, the easiest and cheapest way to do that is to have a foreign aid budget to stop that occuring.
We can of course not spend money on foreign aid, and instead will be spending far more on crime prevention, border control, asylum claims, etc, as well as the ancillary effects all that has like paying for asylum hotels, etc… so to me the answer is obvious of which is the better choice.
It also gives us lots of soft power as once a country is getting money or beneficial trade terms or whatever we can threaten to pull that to influence them. Thats very powerful to have.
CarlxtosWay on
Ignoring the proposal of 1.5% for climate finance, just to increase the ODA budget to 1% of GNI would require an extra £17billion (from £13billion to £30billion).
According to the Green Party their wealth tax would raise £16 billion.
So every time the Greens talk about how transformative a wealth tax would be make sure you bear in mind that it wouldn’t even cover their planned increase to the foreign aid budget.
Ulysses1978ii on
There’s a social return on investment that some folks find hard to grasp. Obviously the Mail will paint it as giving money to bad people and we no have big boom boom.
Andries89 on
A week ago I was so excited about the direction of the Greens… They have since come out with some of the most bonkers ideas and policies. The purity drive on the left is killing any chance of progressive governments in this country. Shame
BasisOk4268 on
If this is accurate reporting and not framed to make it look worse than it is, then even as a liberally aligned person, this party should never touch political office
jammythesandwich on
Daily mail says is now akin trump says, neither has any basis in fact nor reality
CodeToManagement on
I’m not massively against this from three sides
Firstly if you reduce the problems in other countries then those problems don’t come here – people don’t need asylum or military intervention etc.
Then there’s the moral aspect that we or other western nations cause some of the problems in those places either directly or indirectly and we have responsibility to that
And thirdly if we give aid and then they spend that money buying goods or services from us it just gets pumped back into our economy giving us a boost there and probably leads to future spend too.
I’d want to see details but it’s the kind of thing that could easily be spend 2% here to save 3% elsewhere kind of spending.
16 commenti
[removed]
I’m sceptical of the Daily Mail’s reporting but if this article is accurate that is genuinely insane and would make British people significantly worse off. That said, I will reserve judgment until their actual manifesto
Ridiculous. The U.K. currently has the fourth largest foreign aid spending in the world. It’s fine.
The UN targets 0.15% of gdp.
At 2.5% that would put the U.K. at the top by a significant margin. As a percentage of gdp we’d be giving 5x more than Luxembourg who is the current leader
At 2.5% of gdp we’d be giving ca. 70 billion a year. This is nearly what every EU nation combined gives in foreign aid put together.
Foreign aid is mostly a tax giveaway to British businesses. They don’t just hand a cheque out to a foreign nation, the aid gets spent on British products that get shipped out to wherever they’re needed.
It’s a very useful policy for giving the economy a little shot in the arm while also potentially establishing new foreign markets. But it’s not something where more automatically equals better. At some point you’ll hit diminishing returns, and that will probably be a lot sooner than 2.5%.
I’m not agreeing with this proposal if it is accurate and representative, however I did a stint working with DFID back in the day and I’ve come to understand that there’s a huge deficit in public understanding of how foreign aid actually benefits the UK, the soft power associated with it, and how stabilising regions is beneficial for the UK and EU. Obviously from a moral perspective it’s hugely important for the recipients. But also consider that China has moved into the vacuum created by the withdrawal of USAID etc and will reap the benefits of that positive association for a long time, politicly, strategically, economically
It definitely has huge advantages for both donor and recipient.
>But in a policy document seen by this paper, the Greens would devote one per cent of national income to ODA, and 1.5 per cent to climate finance – which helps nations cut their emissions and cope with [climate change](https://archive.is/o/Ao29y/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/climate_change_global_warming/index.html).
Bit more nuance there than just “2.5% to foreign aid”.
There’s an argument behind climate finance, since climate change has a global impact, protecting ourselves means helping other countries decarbonise. Reasonable people can disagree on its effectiveness or how much is appropriate but as a concept its not entirely selfless.
There are some benefits to foreign aid that go underreported (such as vaccination abroad reducing the risk of diseases to British travellers and being brought to the UK) but 2.5% is nuts, that’s in the region of 75 billion pounds. If this were invested at home it would make an enormous amount of impact. For example our justice system is currently imploding and only recieves <0.5% GDP, we could rebuild the system to the point it is World-leading for that kind of cash. Or you could eliminate Stamp Duty Land Tax entirely (creating a more agile workforce and allowing housing to be distributed more efficiently) for just 14 Billion, leaving enough left over to create roughly enough new public sector median income jobs for every [counted by current methodology] unemployed person in the country!
The best way to end migration – economic and asylum – is to make the countries people are migrating from more appealing to remain in. That would involve foreign aid to promote development and stability.
Unfortunately, it would likely take more than 2.5% of GDP, from all developed countries, to make much of an impact. Could it be done? Yes. Will the rich ever allow it? Absolutely not.
[removed]
Just to make a point: if we want less people fleeing shit hole countries that are in civil war or suffering persecution or whatever, the easiest and cheapest way to do that is to have a foreign aid budget to stop that occuring.
We can of course not spend money on foreign aid, and instead will be spending far more on crime prevention, border control, asylum claims, etc, as well as the ancillary effects all that has like paying for asylum hotels, etc… so to me the answer is obvious of which is the better choice.
It also gives us lots of soft power as once a country is getting money or beneficial trade terms or whatever we can threaten to pull that to influence them. Thats very powerful to have.
Ignoring the proposal of 1.5% for climate finance, just to increase the ODA budget to 1% of GNI would require an extra £17billion (from £13billion to £30billion).
According to the Green Party their wealth tax would raise £16 billion.
So every time the Greens talk about how transformative a wealth tax would be make sure you bear in mind that it wouldn’t even cover their planned increase to the foreign aid budget.
There’s a social return on investment that some folks find hard to grasp. Obviously the Mail will paint it as giving money to bad people and we no have big boom boom.
A week ago I was so excited about the direction of the Greens… They have since come out with some of the most bonkers ideas and policies. The purity drive on the left is killing any chance of progressive governments in this country. Shame
If this is accurate reporting and not framed to make it look worse than it is, then even as a liberally aligned person, this party should never touch political office
Daily mail says is now akin trump says, neither has any basis in fact nor reality
I’m not massively against this from three sides
Firstly if you reduce the problems in other countries then those problems don’t come here – people don’t need asylum or military intervention etc.
Then there’s the moral aspect that we or other western nations cause some of the problems in those places either directly or indirectly and we have responsibility to that
And thirdly if we give aid and then they spend that money buying goods or services from us it just gets pumped back into our economy giving us a boost there and probably leads to future spend too.
I’d want to see details but it’s the kind of thing that could easily be spend 2% here to save 3% elsewhere kind of spending.