5 most misleading myths peddled by Vote Leave

by Hugo Dixon | 12.06.2016
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Brexiteers have been running a campaign of misinformation to scare voters into quitting EU. Here are the five of the worst myths busted.

Vote Leave has been running a campaign of misinformation to scare voters into quitting the EU. Despite being told that its facts are wrong, it has persisted peddling falsehoods on everything from migration to the NHS.

InFacts has busted more than 60 of the Leave camp’s myths. Here are five of the most misleading.

  1. Turkey will join EU in 2020

Michael Gove says Turkey is about to join Europe. What he doesn’t say is that it would first need to prove it is a modern European democracy. That means ticking 35 boxes on everything from human rights to the economy. Even then, we or any of the other 27 members could just say no.

Turkey applied to join nearly 30 years ago, in 1987. Since, then it has ticked just one of the 35 boxes. At this rate, it will join the EU in 986 years.  In the year 3002.

  1. We always get outvoted in Brussels

Boris Johnson says we always get bossed around by Brussels because we keep getting outvoted. Since 1999, we’ve been on the losing side 56 times in the EU’s Council. What Boris doesn’t say is how many times we’ve been on the winning side 2,466 times.  2,466 to 56 is a good score in any sport.

 

  1. EU needs us more than we need it

Boris Johnson says we’ll get a good trade deal with the European Union because Germany wants to sell us BMWs. What he doesn’t say is that our exports to the EU are 13% of our economy, while their exports to us are only 3% of their economy. So, we’d be the big losers from a trade war. We need them more than they need us.

Boris also doesn’t say that many foreign firms, like Nissan, set up shop in Britain because we are a gateway to sell stuff to the whole EU. If we quit, Germany and France might try to grab our jobs by luring companies away from the UK.

  1. We send £350m a week to Brussels.

Boris Johnson says we send £350 million a week to Brussels. But it isn’t true. Margaret Thatcher, famously brandishing her handbag, secured a discount on our payment to the European Union. Funny that Boris, a fans of Maggie’s, has forgotten that.

When you take account of Maggie’s discount and money that comes back to Britain from the EU, our membership costs 30 pence per person per day. That’s half the price of a Mars bar. And we get more than 30 pence a day back in benefits.

  1. Leaving EU would save the NHS

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove say quitting Europe would save the NHS because we’d get fewer migrants and stop sending money to Brussels. What they don’t say is that, if we left, we’d lose full access to Europe’s market. That’s responsible for half our trade. We’d suffer such an economic shock that we’d have less money to spend, not more.

Boris and Gove also don’t tell you that EU migrants support the NHS. They pay more in taxes than they use public services – partly because they are younger than Brits. What’s more, one in 10 doctors is an EU migrant.

Sign out petition demanding that Boris repaints his battlebus. Just click on the image below.

Hugo Dixon is the author of The In/Out Question: Why Britain should stay in the EU and fight to make it better. Available here for £5 (paperback), £2.50 (e-book)

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42 Responses to “5 most misleading myths peddled by Vote Leave”

  • At point 5 you state that if we leave then we will lose full access to European markets. That is responsible for half our trade. An earlier point says European exports represent 13% of our trade. When did 13 % equal half. I sympathise with staying in but exaggerations serve no purpose.

    • The distinction is between “Exports to the EU as a percentage of UK GDP” (about 13%) and “the percentage of UK exports going to the EU” (a bit under half).

    • John, “half” refers to our trade with Europe, “13%” refers to our exports to Germany, specifically. If you would vote OUT based on reading one article, then I’d suggest you were going to, anyway.

    • Hi John, it is about half of our trade, but 13% of our GDP (a measure of the total size of our economy).

    • When did any human being allow the facts to affect his emotional response (or hers)? The media has been drumming the Brexit message home after since Maggie demanded “our” money back. The only question now is whether the remain majority at Westminster will have the guts to reject the referendum result. As Edmund Burke told his Bristol constituents in 1780, we choose our MPs not to reflect our own uninformed prejudices but to exercise their independent judgement on our behalf. Otherwise, in today’s electronic paradise, we could decide everything by instant response push-button referenda.

  • 1. David Cameron actually said that turkey would join the European Union and that he would ‘pave to way from Ankera to Brussells.’ Who’s lying?
    2. None of the votes we have won have been for the IMPORTANT things. Merely things which have NO effect! 2466 votes on trivia!
    3. Why wouldn’t the rest of Europe sell to us. Are they going to ‘cut of their noses to spite their faces’. I don’t think so!
    4. We do send 350 million to Brussels a and we are ALLOWED to keep some back. We are still 350 million worse off because we can’t control where it goes. Money that comes back is OUR MONEY! They give us NOTHING.
    5. TTIP are just biding their time to take over our NHS. Why else would it be so important for Obama to try to convince us to remain. It is in the interest of the USA for us to stay but absolutely NOT in the best interest of Britain. total con!

    • | 1. David Cameron actually said that turkey would join the European Union and | that he would ‘pave to way from Ankera to Brussells.’ Who’s lying?

      They both are. Fear and prejudice are, unfortunately, much stronger motivations than the truth. But it’s obvious Turkey is nowhere near being acceptable for EU membership.

      | 2. None of the votes we have won have been for the IMPORTANT things. Merely | things which have NO effect! 2466 votes on trivia!

      Really? Doesn’t seem believable.

      | 3. Why wouldn’t the rest of Europe sell to us. Are they going to ‘cut of their
      | noses to spite their faces’. I don’t think so!

      It’s a question of being on the same terms, i.e. competitative. The point of tariffs is to protect your home-grown industry: because of the size of the UK economy we represent a significant threat, if we were outside the EU, so there would be good reason to keep our trade with the continent in check.

      | 4. We do send 350 million to Brussels a and we are ALLOWED to keep some
      | back. We are still 350 million worse off because we can’t control where it goes.
      | Money that comes back is OUR MONEY! They give us NOTHING.

      The rebate comes off the bill, as it were, before we send anything. We never send it. That campaign bus line is a lie. Why are you so convinced by it? Do you like being lied to?

      | 5. TTIP are just biding their time to take over our NHS. Why else would it be so
      | important for Obama to try to convince us to remain. It is in the interest of the
      | USA for us to stay but absolutely NOT in the best interest of Britain. total con!

      TTIP is indeed worrying. But it isn’t a finished deal yet. I believe the NHS has been ring-fenced out of it.

    • Jenny, I think you understand the concept of cash so … ask yourself what is the net cash effect of our membership fee. That’s the 350 million MINUS rebates and other cash flowing back to the public AND private sectors. Any other view is a lie.

      Who says we don’t have a say in what our rebates are spent on? Do you mean the liars Farage, Gove, Johnson and Carswell? In Northern Ireland they are to be the beneficiaries of a 6.5 million battery back up system courtesy of the EU system: they asked for it, they negotiated for it and they are getting it. Any other view is a lie.

    • Having just returned from Turkey, and spoken to some locals, they really don’t seem that bothered about joining, they know it would be the Death knell for their economy, especially as the most money they make is from tourism and “Knock off” goods, The EU would outlaw such goods and people would be less inclined to return, but that’s not the only reason they would lose. At the moment, Turkey is a reasonably priced place to stay, eat and drink, on a par, or maybe cheaper than the UK!! took a day-trip to Rhodes, and payed 55 Euro’s for Lunch and a drink for 2 of us?!?!?!?!? Now, what what is the difference between Rhodes and the UK and Turkey? Give you a clue, its all about the currency!!

  • What a shame that you weaken your argument so much by counting payments from eu to UK twice in point 4 – presumably to make argument seem more convincing – but it ends up making you as bad as the brexiteers.

    • Not accounted for twice at all. We get some back as part of the negotiated rebate, and the “more than 30 pence per person per day back in benefits” refers to the benefits of membership. That is the subsidies, the benefit of the advantageous trade conditions, and the positive impact on our economy from us being part of the EU. The over simplification of the economics is frightening in this debate. Almost all independent economic studies indicate a net positive financial position, with a worth case level position, these are looking at all the implications of our membership. There are no hard and fast facts but all the best guesses, indicate we’re much more likely to be better off starting in. The rhetoric of leaving to regain control of our finances, alongside providing better services is absolutely crazy. We’ll have more control and more say, but likely a smaller economy, so even less ability to provide services we need.

  • I think your item 4 fudges the issue, by not giving a like-for-like comparison between cost and gain. If you are contesting the £350m per week cost for the whole nation claimed by Brexit, it would make more sense to give your calculated real cost also in millions of pounds per week for the country rather than your 30p per person. I have no idea what 30p per person equates to in terms of real cost. Also, the comparison with the price of a Mars bar simply trivialises the issue.
    Another myth to possibly dismiss is that we are compromised in our trading with other countries by our membership of the EU. This is simply discounted as myth by the fact that Germany exports to countries outside the EU are 3 times greater than ours, even though they are more deeply entrenched in the EU project than ourselves.

  • The NHS COSTS us a lot. We pay because it gives us a great RETURN on our investment. The same goes for the EU, however you account for the cost. The annual investment gives us a tangible return of at least twice what we pay in, and many less tangible returns as well such as peace, improved security, environmental protection, civil and worker’s rights protections and UK influence abroad. Why can’t we just be honest?
    What is the RETURN for leaving? We save £160 (or £350) million a week and in return lose 2% GDP – leaving is a lousy financial choice. Our pension funds and stock market know this, all the independent international financial institutes and banks know this, so do most of the employers and wealth and job creators. All our international friends do too. This is not a conspiracy. Exports to EU will face a tariff – they have said so very clearly.
    I know the EU is a pain in many ways – but divorce is not a sensible answer. It will hurt us all and for what? Our borders have never been secure, ever. Almost all the EU “regulations” are sensible (lots of false claims made here) and many save us costs by sharing regulation (Drugs, chemicals, patents, health and safety etc). The UK economy depends on EU migrants in many sectors – NHS included. Yet we don’t deport those we could (failed asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, those leaving prison) when we should (thats a UK gov. issue, not the EU). We mix up Irish “immigrants” moving back and forth (these will continue), students (financially we do very well here), the large number of UK citizens working and living in other EU states (what will happen to these?). EU migration into the UK is less than that accepted from non-EU sources.

    • Have you considered that 333,000 immigrants net a year is a large city? Newcastle is mentioned. New houses schools, hospitals roads services. I am no expert but I would think that Newcastle may be worth in excess of £30 billion. We have to find this each year. Would this not lead to heavy borrowing? We have doubled our national debt in 6 years, could this not be partly the cause? There are issues about cheap labour. We have an influx of about 17,000 EU immigrants in our area. We have a small town and you hear foreign languages spoken in all places and speciality shops to cater. Our grandchildren will not thank us for not stopping this. My main issue is democracy. 28 Commissioners, 5 Presidents not one British and of the 23 left only one from UK. 715 MEPs and only 72 from UK. Undemocratic.

      • “My main issue is democracy. 28 Commissioners, 5 Presidents not one British and of the 23 left only one from UK.”
        Let me stop you right there. There are 28 commissioners because there are 28 member states, each represented. Of those, 5 are then voted for to be Presidents. I don’t see an issue there. Britain’s commissioner is not a President because they weren’t elected as one – welcome to democracy. If our country represented a fifth of the EU, I would understand you expecting one of the 5 Presidents to be British – however this is simply not the case. Is your idea of a “democracy” one that is biased towards you?

        “715 MEPs and only 72 from UK. Undemocratic.”
        We actually have 73 MEPs, and I think you’ll find that that figure is 3rd highest out of any country. Why do you view this as “undemocratic”? Should we, one of 28 members, have half of the MEPs? THAT would be undemocratic. As it is, the EU is very democratic and the UK could learn a thing or two about democracy from it.

  • This article has made me decide to vote OUT… I haven’t the time to explain how so many parts of it are pure rubbish. We import more from Germany than sell so they would lose more from trade barriers… is just one…
    England has always paid more in than it has got out in subsidies. We subsidise the EU.
    Our fishing fleets and associated industries (ship building, repair, haulage) all suffer while EU fleets thrive…
    ANYWAY: It’s not about any of the issues above.. It’s about who chooses all the above… Our Parliament or a non elected EU Commission. We can have all the good things above and more… but it will be decided here by UK elected officials. Not there!!

    • There was an interesting analysis on Radio 4 by Tim Harford – ‘The Referendum by Numbers’. The impression it left me with is that whilst the £350m ‘sent’ to the EU certainly is a questionable figure, it pales into insignificance when measured against the forecast loss to the British economy from Brexit.

      Even some Brexit economists recognise that there will be a loss to the economy and it is disingenuous not to recognise this.

      Much more legitimate is your second point – i.e. that from a Brexit point of view, the loss to the economy is a price they are prepared to pay for control and sovereignty.

      I would have no issue with Brexiteers making that point. I do take issue with the Boris cake policy – that on Brexit as on cake, you can have exit from the single market and benefit you economy. Or, if you like, that you can have control without suffering economic pain for at least 10 years – and possibly more.

      These are the Emperor’s clothes.

  • IDS said, on Radio 4’s The world at One, today, 13 June, that most of the UK’s services exports go to countries outside the EU. Is that true?

    • Lots of information. What I have seen is that we exported £120 billion to the EU last year and £157 billion to the rest of the world. £41 billion to the USA alone. I saw one report that stated that 12% of the export to the EU actually goes to the rest of the world because it goes through European ports. In 2014 we had a £56 billion trade deficit with the EU and that grew by £33 billion to £89 billion in 2015. We had the greatest ever monthly trade deficit with the EU in January this year at over £8 billion. The Euro zone is in a bad way and I think looks bad for us if we don’t exit. We had to help bail out Greece and Ireland and had to cough up £1.7 billion more to the EU last year even though David Cameron said over my dead body. There are going to be losses if we exit but I believe much worse if we remain.

    • Even if it were true – would you accept putting in jeopardy 40% of your business? Not necessarily lose it but losing a good deal on it?

  • I am a devout European but have always been appalled by the absurd CAP, the doubly wasteful Strasbourg parliament, the Italian-style gravy train for MEPs and the apparent impotence of major members like the UK to exert enough power over the Commission to put an end to such profligacy. I recognise that as non-members we would be even more impotent and can only pray that if we stay in the averted threat of our departure will be the necessary stimulus for serious reform.

  • Both sides peddle lies, and treat the British citizens as fools. I don’t trust any politician to tell me the truth Use you own judgement when you vote.

    • Hear hear!
      Its YOUR vote, dont make it an echo of someone elses views or cloud the issue by making it a political party witch hunt.
      If you’re old enough to remember life before we joined, you should know how to vote…if you aren’t, then TALK to someone who is…and by talk, I dont mean via the internet either.

  • I certainly don’t trust this idea that it will take at least 30 years or the year 3000 before Turkey is allowed to join the EU. If this is really true why has Cameron been campaigning so hard for Turkey to join? Surely if there’s no possibility of it happening during his term as PM or even in his lifetime, why is he even bothering? On a more general note, if the remain case is so good, why is Cameron too chicken to debate it openly on TV with anyone?

    • Every British PM, not just Cameron, has backed Turkey’s attempt to join the EU since they applied, because it’s beneficial to keep them as allies. We know full well that it’s never going to happen, so we just make the right noises from a Turkish point of view.

      It’s the same reason why the govt always refuse to condemn the behaviour of Saudi Arabia.

      • It is true the UK prime minister will play the game in appearing to want Turkey to join the EU because there is little chance of it happening .

        However that carrot is one of the tools used to stem the tide of Syrian refugees passing through turkey to Europe . In agreeing to aid turkeys membership bid eu countries have made a deal by which refugees picked up in neighbouring eu countries if it can be shown they came through turkey can be sent back .

        This has had medicine sans frontiers publicly condem the EU and they now refuse to take money from EU governments in protest of this policy .

  • You just don’t get it and live with your fat pay checks at the suffering of others,If Brussels wasn’t in charge, if America stopped pushing it’s noise in, behind the scenes, then the other countries might have a chance of stablising their countries.Only if they stopped and wasn’t currupt like all poltical leaders.Why put all of that on to our own country. Leave for good!!!

  • I would like to share with you an article in today’s “Helsingin Sanomat” (Helsinki News). The headline is “Turkish invasion and other scare stories”. It says that the Brexit camp in particular is bending the truth to suit their purposes, though “Remain” is not averse to a bit of exaggeration either. In any case, the campaign is being fought more on feelings than facts, it says. It mentions three myths about the EU that the “Leave” side is using and says what the facts are: the famous”350 million” (net contribution after rebate and receipts is actually about 8.5 billion), Britain having no say about Turkey joining and it being a fairly short-term prospect (in fact all the EU countries have to be unanimous on letting a new country in, and Turkey in its present state would not be eligible to join), and the bogus but widely believed claim that unelected EU bureaucrats (the Commission) make laws affecting Britain (in fact, of course, the Commission proposes laws, the member state governments in the Council of Ministers and the elected European Parliament pass the laws. The article quotes emeritus Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman of King’s College as saying that the British public’s ignorance about the EU, in particular about the decision-making system, make them easy prey for these myths and other scare stories. A final comment of my own: if we have another chance to put the case for staying in the EU (i.e., if we win this referendum – if we don’t that’s it, folks), then beforehand we have to do much more to educate the British public, perhaps starting in schools, about the EU, and to counteract the daily drip-drip of propaganda from a big section of the press peddling these myths and other poison, and to get politicians to stick up for the EU on a regular basis. Sorry to be so long winded.

  • Imports outweight Exports and that is bad for britain and it increased the UK’s debt
    So the facts presented as good in terms of remain are another unbalanced view. Why did they forget to mention the other side of Exports? Imports should always be mentioned in the same breath as Exports.

    If we vote to leave we do not have to have Boris or Gove in charge of leaving hopfully the remain people will negotiate over years as how best to leave.

    Prices depend on the exchange rate not on the fact that we are in Europe.

    In or out should not effect trade as I am sure trade will continue whether we are in or out of the EU.

    The global economy of EU is a mess as you can’t control the imports and exports of the country locally when you currency is all part of the EU.

    People will crowd places that are prosperus and cause trouble for prosperus areas with that crowding affecting workers rights with this movement.

  • What amuses me about these ‘facts’ are that they are the opinion of one man who has proved right here that he is indeed a financial wizard. After all he is the author of the £5.00 for a paperback copy and £2.50 for the ebook from which these ‘facts’ were taken.
    Genius!

    • “What amuses me about these ‘facts’ are that they are the opinion of one man”
      What on earth are you talking about?
      2466 votes won and 56 lost is a fact, not an opinion. It is a statistically verifiable truth – your definition of ‘opinion’ needs a serious update.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNb_PHvQF4s – Well dodgy Dave doesn’t seem to mind Turkey joining. If Germany doesn’t mind much either, who is going to be the main vetoer?

    • Even if that were true, and I suspect the Greeks would veto anyway due to their history with Turkey, the Turkish have to qualify first, which there is no foreseeable chance of them ever doing. Since the need to bail out the many southern states, obviously notably Greece too, the EU is not going to risk bringing in another member who cannot qualify financially. Significantly though, Turkey’s human rights record is so poor it would take it decades, maybe even half a century to turn that round to the point the EU would agree to admit them. By then the governments of the UK, France and Germany (and of course all the others) will have changed, so their position on membership for Turkey may well have too!

  • I was – some eight or so weeks ago – somewhat leaning towards the Leave camp.

    But I wanted to make an informed choice so I bought several books about the EU and started reading. I was shocked, not by anything to do with the EU, but initially with how little I knew about it, and subsequently, by how inaccurate some of the information peddled about the EU is. And – whilst there has been some exaggerated claims from both sides (and the EU is not perfect in many ways) – I’m now very clear that the Leave side has been making some outrageously inaccurate and misleading statements.

    I’m now very, very Remain. In fact, I now think of myself as more European than British.

    These are my takeaway lessons from a little reading:

    – The EU has been the main ensurer of peace in Europe since it was founded. In fact, rather than being some economic or monetary project, that is why it was created: to bind the countries of Europe so strongly in trade and mutual dependence that a future war would be unthinkable. This appears to have worked. (Churchill, as a leading supporter of this idea, would be proud!)

    – Although the EU has been less democratic in the past, it has been – and is still – becoming increasingly democratic, with the (fully elected) European Parliament now by far the most dominant of the three main components.

    – The Commission (the civil service of the EU) compares very favorably in efficiency with the civil services of the member states. (The UK employs a little under 400,000 people to this end; the whole EU employs about 50,000.)

    – As the world is moving more and more towards regional alliances in both politics, trade and defense, distancing ourselves from our only natural bloc (geographically and politically) is a retrograde step. It will leave us somewhat marginalized. It could turn us into a complete sideshow, long term.

    – Yes, Europe will still trade with us it we leave. No, it won’t make no difference. Tariffs on UK goods alone could have very negative consequences for our economy.

  • 1. Turkey = The documented stated ambition of the EU is for Turkey to join as soon it is able to meet the requirements. The EU referendum vote is not a vote for the next 10 years, it is a vote for the next 40 years, minimum…

    2.Getting outvoted in Brussels = If you want to talk about misleading, this is pot calling kettle black at ts finest. The article states we’ve been on the losing side only 56 out of 2466 times – which is nonsense, as we’ve not challenged 2410 of those times. The truth is that UK government was on the losing side a far higher proportion of times than any other EU government in the 2009-15 period: jumping from being on the minority (losing) side only 2.6% of the time in 2004-09 to being on the minority (losing) side 12.3% of the time in the 2009-15 period. Also, the next most frequent “losing” governments, Germany and Austria, were only on the minority side 5.4% of the time in this period. There actually an academic paper that has real facts to support this which you can read here. In any event, what this means is that if you vote to stay in the EU, you are voting against the principle of your country being an independent sovereign nation and the democratic principles that go along with that – as, even the article admits, in at least some cases, laws and regulations will be imposed on the British people that the government we voted for does not want. There’s an academic paper you can check the figures on: http://60811b39eee4e42e277a-72b421883bb5b133f34e068afdd7c…

    3. The EU Trade argument….The article compares our (a single country) 13% exports to the entire EU, with the entire EU’s exports of 3% to us. This is intentionally misleading, as it does not account for the fact that the EU are made up of many countries – a lot with incredibly weak economies. It’s not a fair comparison on this basis. If you compare the 7 largest economies in Europe, you will see that they do in fact need the UK more than the UK needs them:
    Germany imports from UK 7.4% vs UK imports from Germany = 10.1%
    UK – n/a
    France imports from UK 7% vs UK imports from France = 5.9%
    Italy = 2.8% vs. 5.3%
    Spain = 2,8% vs. 4.8%
    Netherlands = 5.8% vs. 2.3%
    Sweden 1.4% vs. less than 1.5%

    Think its safe to say that the idea of them clubbing together and coming to an agreement to wipe out an average of some 5% from their economy is highly unlikely!

    4. 350million per week to the EU….The point is they we do contribute that amount – that is not disputed – 1% of GDP. What is up for dispute is whether you deduct the rebate we get from it. The point here is that when someone give you back a proportion of your GDP with conditions as to how you can spend that money, that is undemocratic. Furthermore, even if one does accept the rebate as reducing our contribution, it is accepted that at the very least we contribute £248million per week….not pocket change!

    5. NHS…Yeah, I’ll give you this one – its tenuous. We would have more money and more freedom to spend that money how we see fit by leaving the EU, which could be spent on the NHS, I suppose. The point about migrants contributing etc… is a red herring as nobody is saying we kick out all non-nationals and allow no further immigration – only that immigration should be controlled for volume and quality.

  • I am a “leaver” but am only interested in facts, not conjecture. I agree that HMRC stats show that over the last five years our trade with the EU ran at 38% – 48% of our total exports and it probably averages out at 45% so you are more or less correct. BUT, given we run such a massive trade deficit with the EU (and we’ve just recoded the largest quarterly trade deficit on record with the EU) how can you conclude that leaving the EU is going to result in our trading partners cutting off their noses and putting up trade barriers to our exporters thereby damaging the massive trade advantage they have with the UK? That is just scaremongering on the part of EU leaders and conjecture on your part. The Scandinavian block, especially Sweden, now not at all happy with the EU either, is already mooting a separate trading block agreement with the UK, so it is highly unlikely that we will be disadvantaged if we leave.
    Additionally is it not true that total exports (including non EU) only make up 7% of our total GDP so the scary scenario of UKpkc collapsing if we did lose some of the 48% of the 7% (doubtful anyway) isn’t actually that much to write home about?
    Additionally if sterling weakens as that nice Mr Osborne is predicting then our exports will be more competitive so we’ll export more and create more jobs. So how is that a problem? If imported goods then become more expensive our home produced goods become more attractive creating more jobs here.
    I would challenge you on the relevance of the 2.000+ votes we were “pro” c.f. the 56 we lost just to see what the votes were about as I suspect the 56 were far more important than the 2.000 so suspect you are using the stars to your advantage but that is conjecture and we don’t have time to produce those facts. I’ve personally been on the end of jumped up EU Commissioners overruling our Govt and therein lies a large part of the problem which “Leave” haven’t done well in highlighting.
    If you want facts then the stats on how we’ll have another 900,000+ EU migrants here in the next five years (the last two years show an average of 180,000) are available on the ONS web site – the data is published by the Government. If you are happy with the door being open then by all means vote Remain. If you are as concerned by that fact as I am then vote Leave.
    BTW the Governor of the BoE is appointed by the Govt and the IFS is majority funded by Govt depts and the EU – so no bias from them???

  • If we walk the plank and leave, we will still need to trade with EU countries. Included in any trade deal is free movement of EU citizens.

  • lol….what a coincidence 🙂 I’ve referenced this post just now on FB @PeoplesVoteUK
    (I had no idea that you’re Deputy Chair of the People’s Vote campaign)