I have analysed some of the Official Leave leaflet before, but the time is ripe for a proper dissection of this text, line by line, lie by lie. I will apply a system of points to misinformation.

Page 1

Note that this is at the top of Page 1.

It is an ‘Official’ communication. But that is misleading. It is official only in that it was printed for the Official Leave campaign, Vote Leave. That is only made clear at the bottom of Page 4, in 6pt type. This is a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Misleading index: 8/10

Still no admission that this is from a campaign which is anything but neutral.

Misleading index: 5/10

On the FACT,

• The estimated maximum contribution in 2016 was £17 billion, not £19 billion.
• That is before the £4 billion rebate which takes net contribution to £13 billion.
• The EU paid nearly £5 billion into the public sector and rather less into the private sector.

So the net contribution was rather less than £9 billion.

Here is the historical contributions and direct benefits in graphical form:

Misleading index: 9/10

Another FACT,

What is misleading here is that applying to join is not the same as joining. All members of the EU have to vote to allow any new member of the club.

In practical terms, Croatia will not vote to allow Serbia in. Albania is yet to meet the requirements, and Montenegro and Macedonia are far from being stable democracies and have a population between them of 2.7 million, scarcely a threat.

Then there is the biggie, the one that got all the publicity, Turkey. Now it is certainly true that Turkey has asked to join the EU several times. It has never met the membership requirements and is getting much further away from meeting those requirements under the current regime. Moreover, only a tiny part of Turkey actually lies within the boundaries of Europe. And Germany would never, repeat NEVER allow Turkey to join. Literally no chance.

Moreover this is a deliberately planted racist hate claim used to sway the vote. The graphic for this is on Page 4, and I will comment on that when I come to it.

Misleading index: 10/10, and a bonus point for the race hate factor.

The only point I have to make here is that Leave voters were more committed to vote because of the lies told about the EU over decades in the press, and leading the vanguard of liars was Boris Johnson in The Telegraph.

Page 2 / 3 heading

‘Take back control’ is one of those slogans used by irresponsible campaigners. Control of what and for whom?

Please note that there is an admission that there will be another chance to vote on the issue in an unspecified number of years. Two years plus a few months sounds good to me.

Page 2

The figure is quite accurate for this leaflet, the actual figure was 240,000. And the free movement of people is absolutely true, but that is a freedom we enjoy the other way. In fact almost 100,000 Britons went to work in the other EU countries that year, so what we have is a net figure of 140,000.

‘Many immigrants contribute to our society’. Indeed they do! Not only are most migrants in work, but they contribute more on average than UK citizens in terms of paying tax, and without their help the NHS and Care sectors would struggle to survive. They also tend to go back to their own countries after a few years.  We need immigration for the health of our economy. They do not take ‘Our’ jobs and they contribute more than they take. Without trained builders we would have even more of a housing crisis.

Please note that the graph shows that most immigration came from outside the EU and that was increasing as the numbers from the EU fell dramatically. We have always had full control of our borders for non-EU immigration. We just haven’t managed to get the numbers down.

We could always have adopted the Belgium solution and ejected EU citizens if they have not found gainful employment after three months, but no effort was ever made to do this.

Misleading index: 7/10

This is a direct lie. These countries have applied to join. They have not joined, and, as previously explained, the only country with a significant population, Turkey, will never be allowed to join.

Misleading index: 10/10, and a bonus point for the race hate factor and a Damned Lie!

This one is a bit more subtle. The Common Market morphed into the EU and the number of countries increased in both 1973 and after 1993. In 1973 Britain Ireland and Denmark joined France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries, (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) in the Common Market. The six became the nine.

Control of borders versus free movement of people is a means of saying that something positive is a negative. Moreover, as I have pointed out, we had control over our borders, but didn’t choose to apply it as we need immigration.

As to control over our public services, that is a direct lie. In no way does the EU control our public services in any way that any informed discussion could allow. And, as has been said, the EU contributes billions each year to the public sector. All that is legislated for is agreed standards. And those standards have been raised greatly by that legislation.

‘Prop up the Euro’, what has that got to do with anything? It is just a piece of random prejudice, as far as I can see.

This paragraph is all about implying that the EU is some faceless bureaucratic machine which has been imposed on poor little Britain. In EU voting records, UK ministers were on the “winning side” 95% of the time, abstained 3% of the time, and were on the losing side 2%.

Misleading index: 9/10

 

Where to start on this claim?

There are three parts to the EU legislature, the Council of Ministers, the EU Parliament and the EU Commission. The ministers are elected politicians, one from each member state. The EU Parliament is an elected assembly, and the votes cast are by proportional representation, which is surely much more democratic than the current ‘first past the post’ system used in the UK. Only tghe European Commissioners are appointed.

Compared to the UK system it stars to look very democratic. All UK legislation has to pass a vote in the (unelected) House of Lords, and be signed by our (unelected) Queen.

As to how much EU law comes into UK law, that is a complex issue. To get an unbiased view on this, visit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36473105

What needs emphasising is that there are two factors here. EU Regulations apply in all 28 countries, and these might be regarded as imposed law. The vast majority of EU directives. which set out an aim for member states to achieve. They don’t specify how to achieve it, but directives have to be implemented by a national law. The UK normally does this through a statutory instrument. There are vastly more Directives than Regulations.

At an informed guess, about 13% of UK laws come from EU Regulations. Which means that 87% of our laws are just that.

When you come to ask about the kind of laws the EU Regulations are, they are almost entirely made up of legislation used to give a level playing field for trade. Part of that is to do with workers rights, part environmental legislation. Ask a Leaver which laws they object to and I guarantee they won’t be able to name a single one.

As for counter-terrorism measures, the Police and security services are giving heavy warnings about crashing out of all ECJ regulated agencies, as that really would make a difference to sharing information.

Yes, we are required to have VAT as a taxation system, but we decide the rate, not the EU.

Misleading index: 9/10

Page 3

Back to the old misuse of figures. That works out, using the net figure, as £173 million a week, so rather less than half the figure quoted above.

As a percentage of government spending, this is what we get for 2016:

Note that the EU contributions figure does not allow for what we get back. Even allowing for this being a gross figure, our EU contributions are less than 2% of government spending. With the adjustment of money coming back, it is just over 1%. In terms of trading benefits, that is a bargain!

When we allow for the bureaucratic nightmare of having to mirror all the agencies of the EU and employ tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, it is doubly a bargain.

So, the headline figure is wildly wrong, and the implication that we would spend that money on the NHS is economic sleight of hand, to be generous. And, notice, there is no mention of the £49 billion divorce bill.

Misleading index: 10/10 and a bonus point for the repetition of the original lie.

On the face of it, that is a perfectly true statement. What is not said is far more important than what is said. Yes, Switzerland trades with the EU whist not being a member. But to take stuff into the country requires huge amounts of paperwork and sometimes long delays. The same applies for Norway. So while trading from semi-detached countries like Switzerland and Norway is common it is far more bureaucratic, and potentially far less profitable.

The EU is a trading bloc and enforces compliance with a common set of rules for its members. You can always trade with it, but goods coming in have to comply with EU trading standards, and some tariffs. These standards are the de facto gold standard for international trade. If you can trade with the EU you can sell anywhere in the world. If we drop our standards in order to get a trade deal with the US we would have to accept lower standards and we would not be able to trade on the same terms with the EU or the rest of the world.

The EU is the largest trading block in the world and it is on our doorstep. In economic terms it is mad to believe we could do better outside. We have, through the EU agreements with almost every country in the world. It takes years of negotiations to get trade deals and there is no guarantee we could get such good terms outside of the EU. It seems against all logic to even try to do so.

‘Only 6% of UK firms export to the EU’. Really? You mean that window cleaner down the road doesn’t export to Croatia? This is one of the most misleading and irrelevant statistics I have ever come across.

Misleading index: 10/10

It is certainly true that as a member of the EU we are not allowed to do separate trade deals. We are a member of the club. If you play for a football team you would not expect to be able to also play for a rival team. It is as simple as that.

We already have trade deals with all the countries mentioned, and many more through the EU. That is the point in being in the bloc in the first place. Duh!

As for what those small businesses think, I’ll go and ask that window cleaner.

We would be incredibly lucky to get any trade deals as good as the ones we currently have once we are out of the EU. To put this in context, we export more to France than to the whole of Africa. What do we have that they would want? Perhaps we can offer them financial services, but I somehow doubt they would be a big enough market, and there are limits to how much twenty year old scotch we could sell them. We really can’t increase our exports there by a significant amount.

This entire paragraph is utter nonsense, meant to deceive.

Misleading index: 10/10

Indeed there are risks voting either way, but the risk of continuing what has been a very rewarding relationship is virtually no risk as far as I can tell. The risk of crashing the country by leaving is a blindfold leap over a precipice.

Experts, those pesky experts. They nearly all said that it was a totally lousy idea. Perhaps 1% disagreed, but it was not an equal measure it was a minority with their own agenda. It was and remains a lousy idea to leave. But Michael Gove said that people were ‘fed up with experts’.

If you go to buy a house would you send our friend the window cleaner round to do a survey? And if you had a broken arm, would you trust that cousin of your mate down the pub to fix it for you? There are times we need experts, and this is one of them.

In order to balance the risks and benefits of either option you should take expert advice. If someone tells you not to, you know they are a con-man.

Misleading index: 10/10

Page 2 / 3 footer

OK, that is a slight reduction in size, but the small print is very small indeed.

Page 4

I have already discussed the impossibility of Turkey joining the EU. The accession of Serbia is also certain to be vetoed

The title for the graphic is a lie. These are countries which have at one time or another applied to join the EU. The use of the word ‘set’ indicates that they will join.

Take a look at the graphic for Turkey. Rather than just show the outline, as with the other countries, the graphic has been widened so as to show the borders of two neighbouring countries, which have been deliberately shaded to make them obvious.

Those two countries are Syria and Iraq. The question that needs to be asked is why they were included. The only reason I can see is to try to associate Turkey with civil war and terrorism. Somehow I don’t see this as a geography lesson. This is a piece of dog-whistle racism, and a naked attempt to imply that terrorism could come to the EU through Turkey.

The implications of this piece of black propaganda are that we should be very frightened of remaining in the EU because of possible terrorist attacks.

When I saw this, over two years ago I was utterly appalled that no-one was calling it out for the perfidious, malicious and egregious lie it was. This was a piece of propaganda worthy of Joseph Goebbels, who advised that lies told to the populace should be big ones.

Misleading index: 10/10 plus ten bonus points for outright propaganda.

 

This is really a round-up of the main lies. But there are a couple of new elements.

There is a concentration on the migration crisis. However the UK has never been in the Schengen Area and still requires visa from people who have already entered the EU. (Actually, Norway and Switzerland are in the Schengen area but not in the EU). We have control of our borders and always have had.

Other than that it is just a rehash of the lies about Turkey and Serbia.

Misleading index: 9/10 – because I am feeling generous.

Here at last is the truth about who this communication is from. Shame I am having trouble reading that 6 point text.

Misleading index: 2/10 – because I have a magnifying glass.