The Sun has issued a retraction of an article it published at the end of February which listed potential savings British shoppers would see on goods once European Union tariffs are removed after Brexit.
The “Vote for bargans” was even cited by Jacob Rees-Mogg who claimed it showed the “huge savings for us all outside the customs union”.
But the red top has since admitted it made an “honest mistake” in the article after making calculations based on applied tariff costs to retail prices not import prices.
Their retraction stated:
“We said that savings on Nike Air Trainers would be £20.40, but savings would actually be closer to £7.50.
“There were also mistakes in the calculations for individual items.
“For example, saving on a £2 pack of butter was given as £1, but the tariff is about 42p per pack… Savings on an LG flatscreen TV was given as £44, but there’s an EU free trade agreement with South Korea, so there is no tariff.
“Leaving the Customs Union would not necessarily directly result in any savings on cigarettes and not £4.54 as stated.
“Savings on cherry tomatoes was given as 21p, but almost all EU imports of tomatoes come from Morocco, which has a preferential arrangement with the EU…
“The tariff on mozzarella is €1.85/kg, so the saving on a 125g packet would be about 20p, not 69p.”
The newspaper added:
“The article also stated that we [currently] pay trade charges on more than 13,000 items from outside the EU… In fact, for many of these goods, no tariffs or charges are payable.”
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