Destinations and allocations of British foreign aid in 2015.

BRITISH FOREIGN AID

Intro: Enshrined into UK law is Britain’s ill-judged legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid which ministers are obliged to spend.

The statement made by the European Commission that hundreds of millions of pounds spent on international aid will be returned to the Treasury will be welcome news for Out campaigners. This goes to the heart of the Brexit cause and why British voters chose to leave the European Union: leaving means that decisions taken in the name of British voters, using money that belongs to British taxpayers, are made by people who are directly accountable to those people.

This is one of the starkest examples of what was wrong with Britain’s involvement with the EU; a situation where large sums of money were extracted from taxpayers and handed to unelected and unaccountable Commission officials to spend on aid and vanity projects about which British voters were never consulted. Regaining control of such cash and such decisions is the essence of Brexit.

But, as things stand, that money will not be used very differently. Enshrined into UK law is Britain’s ill-judged legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid which ministers are obliged to spend. This grim irony, a policy which is as unpopular with voters as EU membership was, shares similar undemocratic origins: a political project beloved by metropolitan elites who felt entitled to foist that commitment on taxpayers who did not consent to it.

Taking back control of money sent to Brussels, just as voters instructed, reconciles directly to what Brexit means. The same control must now be restored over the aid budget: the 0.7 per cent target should follow our EU membership into history.