Chart attack: EU and UK at war over misleading stats in Brexit trade talks
A row has erupted between the UK and EU over both sides’ misleading use of charts to score political points in Brexit trade talks.
Yesterday the European Commission published a series of new slides arguing why the UK should not be granted the same kind of trade deal as Canada.
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The deck was headed “UK is different from other trade partners”, and visualised the volume of Britain’s trade compared with other countries such as Canada, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea.
However critics have pointed to the fact that the bubble is much larger than the underlying figures would suggest. According to Politico, the UK’s trade with the EU is around 4.4 times the size of Japan’s – but the bubble is more than 16 times the size.
David Spiegelhalter, a professor of the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University, described the slide as “indefensible” and went against “standard graphical practice.”
“It’s also the biggest mistake to make. It’s incorrect to use diameter to represent volume,” he said, adding that it was “the sort of thing a junior person would do.”
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Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, agreed that the chart was “horribly misleading.”
“The UK does have more trade with the EU27 than each of the other countries shown, but nowhere near as much more as you’d think from looking at this,” he said, “If you’re going to use data to make a point, do use it properly.”
A Commission spokesperson defended the chart, saying: “The chart was generated with an Excel chart tool, based on data from Eurostat. The width of each bubble is proportionate to the total trade of each country.”
But this is not the only chart to have received criticism for clouding the situation ahead of the next stage of Brexit talks, due to begin in early March.
Downing Street has also been attacked after posting Michel Barnier’s old ‘staircase’ slide, showing that the UK could secure a Canada-style FTA under Theresa May’s red lines.
Number 10 was using the slide to argue that the EU has moved the goal-posts on level-playing field commitments.
But this was quickly seized upon by critics, including May’s former chief of staff Gavin Barwell, who pointed out that the EU has always highlighted the difference between the UK and other countries on the basis of locality and size.