Category: Press Releases

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 11 November 2015.

The Government has committed to reduce in-work benefits for EU nationals during their first four years in the UK. If implemented, the Government argues the UK would become a less attractive destination for those looking to improve their living standards. This policy is intended to reduce inward migration by reducing the ‘pull factors’ that encourage EU migrants to move to the UK.

Owing to a lack of joined up thinking in Government, however, the plan will be completely undercut by George Osborne’s new ‘living wage’. The UK will therefore remain an extremely attractive destination for EU migrants, regardless of whether the Government succeeds in its plan to limit the benefits.

If the Government is able to negotiate a way to restrict benefits for EU migrants, the living wage would still increase the take-home income of the lowest earning EU benefits claimants with no dependants by £57.99 per week or £3,015.48 a year by 2020 (when compared to forecasts for 2020 if the UK had not introduced the living wage). This almost entirely undercuts the reduction in take-home income for single earners with no dependants that the Government is proposing.

If the Government is not successful in negotiating a deal to limit benefit claims by EU migrants the pull factors will become even stronger than they are now. For a single earner with no dependants their take-home income would increase by £134.23 per week or £6,979.96 a year by 2020 (when compared against 2020 forecasts that don’t have the living wage). This is an increase of more than 60% compared to the results the Government hoped to achieve when it set out its plans to limit EU benefits.

Sir Jeremy Heywood – the UK’s most senior civil servant – has warned that David Cameron’s proposed restrictions to migrant benefits are likely to be illegal under EU law. This means they are very unlikely to survive a challenge in the European Court of Justice.

Following the Government’s own logic this suggests that the combination of the Government failing to achieve the four year restriction to benefits for EU migrants and the introduction of the living wage, will lead to the number of EU migrants rising rather than falling.

Commenting, Vote Leave Communications Director Paul Stephenson said:

“People are worried that high levels of immigration from Europe are putting our NHS, schools and housing supply under pressure. David Cameron wants to change that and make the UK less attractive to migrants by restricting the benefits they can claim here.

But George Osborne’s living wage will completely undercut David Cameron’s EU negotiation. It means that the UK will be just as attractive to many migrants as it is now. If, as the Cabinet Secretary has warned, Mr Cameron fails to achieve EU benefit restrictions, the situation will get even worse.

The living wage is a great thing for many workers in the UK but it looks like George Osborne did not consider what impact it would have on David Cameron’s plans to restrict EU immigration before he announced it. It is clear that the only way we can get back control over immigration is if we Vote Leave in the upcoming referendum.”

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 8 November 2015.

Commenting ahead of the PM’s speech this week and the letter on EU renegotiation, Vote Leave Campaign Director Dominic Cummings said: “We expect Cameron to get what he’s asking for but what he’s asking for is trivial.

‘The public wants the end of the supremacy of EU law and to take back control of our economy, our borders, and our democracy. The only way to do this is to vote leave. No. 10 is panicking because people can see the renegotiation is a dishonest gimmick.”

The fact that David Cameron is sending this letter is itself a concession. He was forced into doing so after EU leaders complained that the renegotiation could not happen without the Prime Minister setting out his demands in a letter. Senior figures across Europe have been frustrated by the slow pace of his negotiations – with exasperation coming to a head at the European Council meeting in October:

Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, complained: ‘The UK government raised the problem of the referendum … It is up to the Cameron government to make proposals. It is not up to us’ (quoted in The Guardian, 15 October 2015, link).

Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, said no real progress had been made by mid-October: ‘I can’t say that huge progress has been achieved. I can’t say that nothing has been achieved. But to tango it takes two,’ said on 14 October: ‘And so we have to dance and our British friends have to dance’ (quoted by Reuters, 16 October 2015, link).

Angela Merkel told the Bundestag the following day that it was up to the UK to ‘clarify the substance of what it is envisaging’ (quoted in The Independent, 16 October 2015, link).

Charles Michel, Prime Minister of Belgium, said: ‘It is time for Mr Cameron to put his cards on the table’ (Press Association, 16 October 2015, link).

‘Senior EU officials and diplomats said that a substantive political negotiation at December’s summit will only be possible if Britain delivers clear, written proposals to Brussels and the 27 other national governments by early November’ (Reuters, 16 October 2015, link).

The Government’s negotiations are already running behind schedule. As Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform, said in June: ‘Cameron hopes to clinch a final deal in December’ (26 June 2015, link). Philip Hammond told reporters as recently as 22 September: ‘When I’ve had a few glasses of champagne I think there might be agreement at the December European Council, a package and we can move forward’ (The Daily Telegraph, 22 September 2015, link). But following the exasperation of EU leaders in October, and David Cameron’s forced announcement that ‘the pace will now quicken’, it is clear that the December Council will only be a ‘substantive discussion’.

The Government didn’t want you to see this letter. At the Downing Street press briefing where it was first announced that the Prime Minister would be sending this letter to President Tusk, it was made clear that the letter would remain confidential, not made available to Parliament and the public. It was only after Sir William Cash – Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee – objected, that Number 10 confirmed that the letter would be made public (Bill Cash’s blog, 19 October 2015, link).

Any deal will be meaningless without treaty change before the referendum… Any new deal which is dependent on a treaty change is liable to be struck down by the EU’s courts after the referendum. The European Court of Justice has previously held that a political declaration of the European Council which limits rights under EU law ‘has no legal significance’ unless and until it is incorporated into EU law (R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal, Ex parte Antonissen [1991] 2 CMLR 373, 400). Any treaty changes that the UK might be promised ahead of a referendum could be vetoed after the vote by any one of the 27 other EU member states, several of which may have to hold referendums under their own constitutions. A treaty that has not been ratified before the referendum will have the same legal status as an unsigned contract.

… as the Cabinet Secretary warned this week. Sir Jeremy Heywood has reportedly told Ministers that their proposal to ban EU migrants from claiming tax credits in the UK for four years will be deemed illegal under EU law (BBC News, 4 November 2015, link).

But the Government cannot promise that it will achieve that before the referendum. Following his speech in Berlin earlier this week, George Osborne admitted that some of the Government’s demands would need treaty change but was unable to say when this will happen. Although he admitted that ‘the changes we are seeking will require treaty change,’ all he could say on timing was: ‘how that is delivered and when that is delivered is of course subject to the negotiation’ (BBC News online, 3 November 2015, link).

The Prime Minister has already shelved nine out of ten of his demands. Vote Leave research has shown that 92% of David Cameron’s pledges to change the EU look like they will not be delivered by his EU renegotiation – either because they have been dropped, or because they require treaty change. (See the full Vote Leave research paper here). This includes black-and-white promises on crucial parts of the UK’s relationship with the EU, such as the Prime Minister’s promise in 2009 to negotiate ‘a complete opt-out’ from the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (David Cameron, speech on the EU, 4 November 2009, link).

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 10 November 2015.

Reacting to David Cameron’s speech this morning, Dominic Cummings, Campaign Director of Vote Leave, said:

“The public wants the end of the supremacy of EU law, to take back control of our democracy and borders, and to spend the money wasted in Brussels on our priorities like the NHS and science. Cameron’s renegotiation isn’t even asking for this – he is only promising to change what he already thinks the EU will give him. People won’t trust his spin. The safest choice is to Vote Leave.”

On what was missing from the speech:

The Prime Minister has already shelved nine out of ten of his demands. David Cameron used to have a longer list of demands to secure the ‘fundamental, far-reaching change’ which he talked about as recently as his 2013 Bloomberg speech. Vote Leave research has shown that 92 per cent of the pledges David Cameron has made to change the EU since he became leader of the Conservative Party look like they will not be delivered by his EU renegotiation – either because they have been shelved, or because they require treaty change. This includes black-and-white promises on crucial parts of the UK’s relationship with the EU, such as:

Securing treaty change before the referendum. In January 2015, the Prime Minister said his plans ‘do involve … proper, full-on treaty change’ (The Guardian, 4 January 2015, link).

Taking back control of employment and social regulations. In 2005, Cameron stated that ‘our aim should be to take back control of employment and social regulation’ (David Cameron, Policy Programme, 10 October 2005, link).

Limiting ECJ jurisdiction over criminal law. In 2009, Cameron promised to ‘limit … the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level’ (BBC News, 4 November 2009, link).

Requiring EU migrants to have a job offer before coming to the UK. In November 2014, the Prime Minister claimed that ‘we want EU jobseekers to have a job offer before they come here’ (BBC News, 28 November 2014, link).

Requiring EU jobseekers to leave after six months. Cameron promised in 2014 that ‘if an EU jobseeker has not found work within six months, they will be required to leave’ (BBC News, 28 November 2014, link). Yet as the ECJ ruled in September this year, ‘Union citizens who have entered the territory of the host Member State in order to seek employment may not be expelled for as long as they can provide evidence that they are continuing to seek employment and that they have a genuine chance of being engaged.’ Today, the Prime Minister ignored that ruling and claimed he had achieved his objective.

Ending the European Parliament sitting in two places. The Conservative European Parliamentary Manifesto of 2009 said that: ‘The European Parliament must end its absurdly wasteful practice of meeting in Strasbourg as well as Brussels’.

Reforming the Common Agricultural Policy. The Conservative Party Manifesto of 2015 stated that ‘We will push for further reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy’. Cameron did not mention agriculture in his speech.

Reforming EU structural funds. The Conservative Party Manifesto of 2015 pledged ‘further reform of… Structural Funds.’ Structural funds were not mentioned in Cameron’s speech.

A full list of the pledges which have been shelved is available in this Vote Leave research paper.

On Cameron’s four objectives

1. ‘protect the single market for Britain and others outside the Eurozone’

Asking the EU formally to recognise that the currency of the UK is the pound sterling shows how stuck in the past the EU is – it’s more than a decade since we made clear that the UK would not be joining the single currency (despite calls from the CBI and others for us to do so). As Cameron acknowledges in his letter, ‘the United Kingdom has a permanent opt-out from the Eurozone.’

The UK can be permanently outvoted by the Eurozone. The UK has extremely little influence inside the EU’s institutions. Our presence in the two key bodies – the Council of Ministers and the Parliament – has declined over our forty years of membership. We are now set to be permanently outvoted by the Eurozone caucus in the Council of Ministers. Since records began, the UK has not managed to block a single proposal placed in front of the Council from becoming EU law. On all 72 occasions on which the UK has voted against a measure in the Council of Ministers, it has gone on to become law – 40 of these since David Cameron became Prime Minister. The direct budgetary costs of these laws to the British taxpayer is over €3 billion (£2.4 billion) a year. (See the full Vote Leave research here.)

Without treaty change, the EU can carry on breaking its promises to non-Eurozone countries – as the PM and Chancellor know. Speaking in Berlin last week, George Osborne highlighted the way the EU has recently gone back on promises not to require countries like the UK to bail out countries in the euro. Osborne showed how frustrated he was about this, saying:

‘We must never let taxpayers in countries that are not in the euro bear the cost for supporting countries in the eurozone. This is exactly what was attempted in July, when, out of the blue, in flagrant breach of the agreement we’d all signed up to, and without even the courtesy of a telephone call, we were informed we could have to pay to bail out Greece. That would have been grossly unfair … we shouldn’t have to fight a running battle on these issues’ (George Osborne, speech to the BDI, Berlin, 3 November 2015).

In March 2011, the UK was made a promise that the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM) ‘should not be used’ for bailing out Eurozone states. The Prime Minister assured the House of Commons that Britain would be exempt from bailouts, and has repeatedly used the deal as proof that he can renegotiate Britain’s membership with the EU. Indeed, the 2015 Conservative manifesto boasted: ‘We took Britain out of Eurozone bailouts, including for Greece – the first ever return of powers from Brussels.’ Yet in July this year, the EU broke its promise and agreed to use the EFSM to grant €7.2 billion in bridging finance to Greece. Article 122(2) of the Treaty of Rome still allows the Council of Ministers (where the Eurozone has a permanent majority) to grant loans secured on the whole EU budget to insolvent Eurozone states. Without Treaty change, this could happen again.

2. ‘write competitiveness into the DNA of the whole European Union’

Nearly 1,000 more regulations over the past year alone. The Prime Minister claimed that more regulations will be repealed this year than during the whole of the previous Commission. In fact, the size of the EU’s acquis is growing. According to the EU’s Eur-Lex database, the number of EU legislative acts in force has grown by almost 1,000 over the past year – from 22,139 acts on 1 October 2014 to 23,072 on 9 November 2015.

3. ‘exempt Britain from an “ever closer union” and bolster national parliaments’

The only way to stop ever-closer union is to end the supremacy of EU over British law. The phrase ‘ever closer union’ was only inserted in the Maastricht Treaty at the UK’s request as part of the Major Government’s claims that it had put the brakes on federalism. Changing it would not alter how the ECJ interprets and creates EU law. The ECJ invented the concept of the supremacy of EU law – it was not in the original Treaties. The only way to end this is to Vote Leave.

Bolstering national parliaments will require treaty change – and the present ‘yellow card’ scheme is being ignored. The role of national parliaments in the EU is currently governed by the EU treaties. National parliaments have the right to be sent European Commission proposals and draft legislative acts from the EU institutions. In an eight-week period following the proposal of a draft legislative act, national parliaments may send the EU institutions a reasoned opinion stating that the proposal does not comply with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. If a third of national parliaments forward such an opinion, the proposal must be reviewed, but it may nevertheless be adopted. This so-called ‘yellow card’ procedure has been invoked twice. On one occasion, the Commission withdrew the proposal, on another, it decided to maintain it. The Luxembourg Court has never struck down an EU measure for breach of the principle of subsidiarity, usually requiring the European Parliament and Council of Ministers merely to produce a form of words stating they have thought about the principle. Any proposals for the ‘yellow card’ procedure to be replaced by a ‘red card’ procedure, under which national parliaments could actually block a legislative proposal, would require full treaty change following an inter-governmental conference. This would require unanimous agreement by the heads of government, and ratification by every member state in accordance with its constitutional requirements.

4. ‘tackle abuses of the right to free movement, and enable us to control migration from the European Union, in line with our manifesto’

David Cameron is no longer talking about restricting free movement to people with a firm job offer. In November 2014, the Prime Minister claimed that ‘we want EU jobseekers to have a job offer before they come here’ (BBC News, 28 November 2014, link).

The Prime Minister’s claims about what he has achieved are contradicted by the ECJ. The Prime Minister claimed in his speech that ‘if those coming from the EU haven’t found work within six months, they can be required to leave’. Yet as the ECJ ruled in September 2015, ‘Union citizens who have entered the territory of the host Member State in order to seek employment may not be expelled for as long as they can provide evidence that they are continuing to seek employment and that they have a genuine chance of being engaged.’

The Cabinet Secretary has warned the Prime Minister that it can’t get what it wants on welfare. Sir Jeremy Heywood has reportedly told the Prime Minister that his proposal to ban EU migrants from claiming tax credits in the UK for four years will be deemed illegal under EU law (BBC News, 4 November 2015, link).

On the need for treaty change

The Prime Minister said today: ‘I want to be very clear: if we are able to reach agreement, it must be on a basis that is legally-binding and irreversible and where necessary has force in the Treaties’ (David Cameron, speech at Chatham House, 10 November 2015).

Any deal the Government negotiates will be meaningless without treaty change before the referendum. Any deal which is dependent on a treaty change that hasn’t happened by the time of the referendum is liable to be unpicked or struck down by the EU’s courts after we vote on it. The European Court of Justice has previously ruled that a political declaration of the European Council which limits rights under EU law ‘has no legal significance’ unless and until it is incorporated into EU law. Any treaty changes that the UK might be promised ahead of a referendum could be vetoed after the vote by any one of the 27 other EU member states, several of which may have to hold referendums under their own constitutions. A treaty that has not been ratified before the referendum will have the same legal status as an unsigned contract.

But the Government knows it cannot secure that before the referendum. Interviewed last week after his speech in Berlin, George Osborne admitted: ‘Well I do think the changes we are seeking will require treaty change, how that is delivered and when that is delivered is of course subject to the negotiation’ (BBC News, 3 November 2015, link).

On the Charter of Fundamental Rights

David Cameron has watered down his commitment to a ‘complete opt-out’ from the Charter, which is not even mentioned in his letter today. In 2009, Mr Cameron called for ‘a complete opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights’ – now all he is proposing is a fudge. He said today: ‘we will enshrine in our domestic law that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights does not create any new rights. We will make it explicit to our courts that they cannot use the EU Charter as the basis for any new legal challenge citing spurious new human rights grounds … We need to examine the way that Germany and other EU nations uphold their constitution and sovereignty … [and] consider how this could be done in the UK’. This simply repeats the text of Protocol (No 30) to the Lisbon Treaty, which the Blair Government negotiated, and which the ECJ has since ignored.

The Charter gives EU judges the power to decide issues like prisoner voting. In 2009, the then Labour Government claimed ‘it is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out from … the charter’, having previously said it would be no more binding than ‘the Beano or The Sun’. This was quickly shown to be incorrect. The European Court of Justice made clear in 2011 that the UK did not have an opt-out, and the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Charter has ‘direct effect’ in national law. The ECJ is using the Charter to do whatever it likes, recently holding that it should decide whether or not prisoners should have the vote.

David Cameron’s fudge. The only way that British legislation could stop the Charter having legal effect in UK courts is for primary legislation to state explicitly that it takes effect ‘notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972’. This would provoke considerable conflict with the EU given the ECJ’s longstanding doctrine of the supremacy of EU law. If the UK were to pass primary legislation stating that it takes effect contrary to EU law and re-asserting the historic supremacy of British law, the ECJ would undoubtedly find that it is contrary to EU law. This would leave the UK’s membership in a legal twilight zone and expose the UK to fines in the ECJ. It is therefore unlikely that this is the course of action David Cameron envisages. The most likely scenario is that as part of the theatre around the renegotiation, in which all 28 members sign a document promising a new UK deal in the next EU Treaty, some words are inserted promising to change the status of the Charter in the next Treaty. Such words should be taken as seriously as Tony Blair’s promise that the Charter would have ‘no more legal effect than The Beano’. It must also be remembered that nothing in David Cameron’s proposed changes to the Human Rights Act will end the supremacy of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which will also remain in charge of human rights law in the UK.

On the Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk

When Denmark was negotiating with the EU, they set out their position in a 250-page White Paper – all David Cameron has managed is this 6-page letter. It is now more than six months since the general election, and all David Cameron has published setting out his negotiating objectives is one letter. In contrast, after Danish voters narrowly rejected the Maastricht Treaty in a referendum on 2 June 1992, the Danish Government began to negotiate guarantees from the EU. By 9 October – just four months later – they had produced a 251-page white paper, ‘Denmark in Europe’. It was discussed at the meeting of the European Council in Edinburgh on 11–12 December 1992.

David Cameron didn’t even want to send this letter. He was forced into doing so after EU leaders complained that the renegotiation could not happen without the Prime Minister setting out his demands in writing. Senior figures across Europe have been frustrated by the slow pace of his negotiations – with exasperation coming to a head at the European Council meeting in October:

Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, complained: ‘The UK government raised the problem of the referendum … It is up to the Cameron government to make proposals. It is not up to us’ (quoted in The Guardian, 15 October 2015, link).

Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, said no real progress had been made by mid-October: ‘I can’t say that huge progress has been achieved. I can’t say that nothing has been achieved. But to tango it takes two,’ said on 14 October: ‘And so we have to dance and our British friends have to dance’ (quoted by Reuters, 16 October 2015, link).

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, told the Bundestag the following day that it was up to the UK to ‘clarify the substance of what it is envisaging’ (quoted in The Independent, 16 October 2015, link).

Charles Michel, Prime Minister of Belgium, said: ‘It is time for Mr Cameron to put his cards on the table’ (Press Association, 16 October 2015, link)

The Government didn’t want you to see this letter. At the Downing Street press briefing where it was first announced that the Prime Minister would be sending this letter to President Tusk, it was made clear that the letter would remain confidential, not made available to Parliament and the public. It was only after Sir Bill Cash – Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee – objected, that Number 10 confirmed that the letter would be made public (Bill Cash’s blog, 19 October 2015, link).

On the negotiations

The Government’s negotiation is not being taken seriously in the EU. George Osborne was in Berlin last week outlining the UK’s proposals – but a German government source revealed that they were not taking him seriously, saying: ‘Osborne must have his crusade … We are happy to play along’ (BBC News, 2 November 2015, link).

Even the BSE campaign were unimpressed with David Cameron’s speech

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP and a member of the Britain Stronger in Europe (BSE) board, put out a statement saying Cameron’s speech was ‘deeply depressing’. She said:

“Cameron’s vision for an EU based on little more than an increasingly deregulated free market is deeply depressing.

The EU has given us so much – free movement and the right to make a living across a continent, protections at work and key environmental laws – yet the prime minister wants to reduce our relationships with neighbouring countries to little more than business transactions. That’s not a vision I share.

Britain must remain a part of the EU because we’re better off when we work together on cross-border challenges we face: from climate change to bank regulation. The EU will only succeed if it’s much more than just a market.”

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 3 November 2015.

The CBI’s claim to be the ‘voice of business’ took a further blow yesterday after a leading member of the British Polling Council concluded that its polling of business opinion on the EU ‘looks pretty dodgy’. This damning verdict followed a complaint by our Campaign Director Dominic Cummings. It brings into serious question the claim by the CBI that ‘8 out of 10 firms say UK must stay in EU’. Indeed, the CBI has now back-tracked from its own survey, claiming that it was ‘never intended to be a poll of all British businesses.’ The CBI has deliberately fiddled its surveys and misled the public on business attitudes towards the EU. It has no credibility on the issue and should not be trusted.

CBI is funded by the EU

New research by Vote Leave reveals that the CBI receives millions from the EU and public bodies. Taxpayers’ money from the European Commission has funded the CBI to the tune of almost £1 million over the past six years – its largest source of public money. As the Mail leader asked this morning, ‘could this have anything to do with its support for the European project?’

Since 2009, taxpayer-funded public bodies including the European Commission have paid over £7 million to the CBI in membership fees and other payments. Not only does this call into question the CBI’s claim that it is the ‘voice of business’, but its own rules mean that many of these public institutions will have to resign from the CBI if it continues with its plans to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU. The Scottish Independence referendum was an embarrassing episode for the CBI after a number of major public bodies resigned when it registered to campaign against independence. A month later the CBI was forced to withdraw from the campaign.

Outgoing CBI boss John Cridland has given an interview to the FT today in which he sees the criticism of the CBI’s ‘dodgy’ polls and its unfaltering pro-EU stance as a ‘badge of honour’. Most people would see this behaviour as shameful.

US trade diplomat’s EU ties revealed

Michael Froman, a US trade representative, made headlines last week by claiming that the UK was unlikely to negotiate a free trade agreement with the US in the event of Brexit. However, as John Hulsman wrote in yesterday’s CityAM, the next US President is ‘highly likely to do exactly the opposite’ of what Froman implied. What the trade representative failed to mention was that he had previously worked in the European Commission as a member of the Forward Studies Unit. He clearly wasn’t the only one to have accepted a ‘duty of loyalty’ to the EU.

Watch out for EU funded scare stories

As the referendum campaign continues we should expect more of these attacks from those with vested interests. The EU gives millions each year to organisations to be cheerleaders for Brussels. That’s why EU-funded reports say that 90% of UK farmers wouldn’t survive outside the EU. That’s why former EU employees are warning the UK won’t be able to do its own trade deals with the US. That’s why the EU-funded CBI will put out scare stories about how the UK won’t survive outside of the EU. They should not be trusted.

This was no better demonstrated by a report from Agra Europe last week which claimed that 90% of UK farmers wouldn’t survive the loss of subsidies following a Brexit. It only became apparent days later that Agra Europe and its sister company had received more than €200,000 in EU funding.

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 3 November 2015.

New research by Vote Leave reveals that the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) received nearly £1 million from the European Commission between 2009 and 2015 – and that the EU is the CBI’s single largest source of public sector funds, which total more than £7 million.

The research – based on hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests – reveals that:

▪ Between 2009 and 2015, the CBI received £955,484 from the European Commission. This equates to 12% of the CBI’s retained income in the same period.

▪ 95 public bodies were members of the CBI during the period 2009–15, providing the CBI with £5,172,204 in membership fees from the public sector rather than industry.

▪ Since 2009, the CBI has received £7,031,797 from 140 taxpayer-funded public sector bodies in membership fees, conference fees or other payments. This raises serious questions about how far the CBI is truly the ‘voice of business’.

▪ If the CBI continues with its plans to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU, many of these public institutions will have to resign from the CBI.

Commenting, Rob Oxley said:

“The CBI is funded by the EU, so it is no surprise that it wants to campaign for the UK to stay in the EU regardless of whether there is any reform or not.

The CBI leadership has consistently got it wrong on the EU, from its disastrous campaign for us to join the euro to its undermining of the case for an EU referendum.

The CBI leadership wants to stay in the EU at all costs, yet with so much public sector and European Commission funding it is deeply compromised. We think its public sector members should resign if the CBI decides to campaign for the UK to stay in the EU.”

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 2 November 2015.

The CBI – which describes itself as the ‘Voice of Business’ – has always taken an unquestioning pro-EU stance. Its leadership campaigned for the UK to join the euro and is now gearing up to help lead the campaign for the UK to stay in the EU.

Fiddling their figures to boost support for the EU

On the authority of a 2013 YouGov survey that it commissioned, the CBI has claimed that ‘8 out of 10 firms say UK must stay in EU’. But our research shows that this survey is likely to be highly misleading. YouGov has confirmed that the CBI did not supply them with ‘any business characteristics data’ or ‘any population data’ for the 2013 survey. This prevented the weighting of the data to reflect the characteristics of either the CBI’s membership or British businesses. This means that:

– Just 39.5% of respondents to the survey were small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs). According to government figures for 2013, ‘99.9 per cent of private sector businesses are SMEs’.

– Only 20.5% of respondents had fewer than 50 employees. According to government figures for 2013, 99.2% of British businesses had fewer than 50 employees.

The parallels with the CBI’s deeply flawed membership surveys during the euro campaign are striking. In the late 1990s, the CBI was one of the leading campaigners for the UK to join the euro.

Leaked minutes from the CBI Economic Affairs Committee in 1998 revealed that the CBI had ruled out ‘a completely random survey of businesses, which would be the ultimate gauge of firms’ attitudes to UK membership of EMU’, because ‘complication might arise if the outcome turned out to be less pro-EMU’ than the CBI’s own stance.

Nevertheless, the CBI consistently claimed that between three quarters and four-fifths of British businesses supported the adoption of the single currency. The CBI advanced its claims by relying on deeply flawed surveys, which often excluded businesses with fewer than 10 employees, thus excluding 95% of all British businesses in 1999.

The CBI fiddled their figures on the euro and now they are at it again on the EU

Reality – business is divided

A FSB survey released last month found that 41% of its members would vote to leave the EU. Similarly, in a recent Business for Britain poll of SMEs, over 40% of respondents stated that the EU hinders their business, compared to 20% who said it helped.

Misrepresenting its own membership numbers

The CBI’s claim that it is the ‘Voice of Business’ is in itself misleading. It claims to ‘represent’ over 190,000 businesses but in fact many of those are not actually members of the CBI, they are instead part of other trade associations that are affiliated to the CBI. For example, the National Farmers Union (NFU), which is affiliated to the CBI has over 55,000 members. The CBI claims that all these farmers are businesses that it represents, but they have never actually joined the CBI and almost certainly don’t realise that the CBI claims to speak on their behalf. This means that nearly a third of the CBI’s claimed members are actually members of the NFU not the CBI.

The CBI has refused to answer any questions from us about how many actual members it has and who they are. Because of this secrecy it is very difficult to work out who they actually represent. But in a new research note we estimate that they actually only represent about 2,216 firms or 0.4% of the total number of businesses in the UK.

The CBI fiddles its figures to artificially boost the number of businesses that it claims to represent. It fiddled its figures on the euro and is now doing the same on the EU. It cannot be trusted.

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 29 October 2015.

The flagging BSE campaign, the campaign to keep us in the EU, was at it again this morning, talking down Britain and suggesting that the world would end if we left the EU.

Lucy Thomas and former Home Office Minister Damian Green walked round the parliamentary press lobby at 9am this morning (when most journalists weren’t there) with a new ‘attack document’.

It is a ‘report’ that continually talks down Britain and is intended to stoke up fears of what life outside the EU would be like. It warns of the ‘risks’ if we Vote Leave, that Britain would be ‘weaker’, and that leaving the EU would ‘cost Britain dear’. We would expect nothing less from a campaign funded by the EU.

We believe that the UK will be able to negotiate its own deal with the EU when we Vote Leave. Trying to claim otherwise is doing Britain down. Suggesting that we would have to accept the same deal as Norway or Turkey misunderstands the importance of the UK to the rest of the EU.

Mandelson, Clegg and Roland Rudd all claimed the world would end if we didn’t join the euro. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. The BSE campaign – egged on by former Government strategist Andrew Cooper – want to run Project Fear II. They want to scare people into staying in the EU. This is a dangerous game to play with the British people who will not respond well to such threats.

The problem for the BSE campaign is that their own Chairman doesn’t agree with them. As Lord Rose has said: ‘Nothing is going to happen if we come out of Europe’.

People are much more likely to agree with captains of industry such as Graeme Macdonald, JCB’s chief executive who said that if we left the EU ‘I really don’t think it would make a blind bit of difference to trade with Europe. There has been far too much scaremongering about things like jobs. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to stop trade. I don’t think we or Brussels will put up trade barriers.’

Jeff Immelt from GE has said: ‘It’s important the UK has good relationships around the world, but I don’t really think that its place in the European Union makes that much difference.’

Tim Tozer from Vauxhall said: ‘If this country would vote to leave the EU, would that trouble or concern us? There my answer is no because I don’t think that in that event there would not be a trade agreement with what was left of the EU.’

We do not want a Norway option. We want to secure the best possible deal for the UK. This means stopping sending £350 million each week to the EU; regaining the ability to make our own trade deals; ending the supremacy of EU law and taking our seat on world bodies.

We are confident about Britain’s place in the world and our clout as a country. We believe in Britain and its ability to negotiate a good deal with the rest of the EU when we Vote Leave. We are positive about the future of our country and the growth we could secure by taking back our place on the global stage.

Unfortunately, the BSE campaign has nothing positive to offer and is instead resorting to talking Britain down. They know their launch was a flop and that Number 10 are already openly speculating about replacing Will Straw and Stuart Rose. This new attack is not going to help – trying to scare people will backfire on them.

The press release issued by 29 October 2015.

David Cameron yesterday said that he would ‘strongly guard’ against the Norwegian option as it means the country ‘has no seat at the table’ to negotiate EU laws. The Prime Minister has previously said that he would ‘rule nothing out’ following his renegotiation, but it is becoming clear that he is siding with the pro-EU BSE campaign. He has lost all confidence in his reform package, and now he is talking down Britain.

The UK needs a say at the global level, not the EU

The argument that the UK should stay in the EU to keep its seat at the table is outdated, as more and more rules are now made at a global level. As the world’s 5th largest economy, the UK will have a leading voice in shaping standards and regulations across the globe.

Pro-EU groups claim that the UK needs to shape EU laws on financial services in order to protect the City of London. However, much of the UK’s financial regulation is influenced by the Financial Stability Board. And the chair of the Board? Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England.

Similarly, a key export market for Norway is the fishing industry. It just so happens that the Norwegian government is chair of the international food standards committee on fish and fish products.

In any event, our research shows that the UK has opposed 72 measures in the EU Council which have gone on to become law. This has cost the UK taxpayer an eye-watering £2.4 billion a year.

Collective responsibility

With the Prime Minister losing any semblance of neutrality in this debate, it raises the question of collective cabinet responsibility. David Cameron has said that he will make a decision over this once he returns with his reform package. However, ministers who want to campaign for Brexit could be forgiven for being annoyed that they have not yet been given a free vote, let alone allowed to publicly announce their position.

Clegg takes up his role on BSE campaign

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg weighed into the debate on the Today programme this morning. He argued that all of the models for relationships with the EU offered by non-member European countries were ‘worse than being a full member of the single market’. This is coming from the man who claimed that ‘if we remain outside the euro, we will simply continue to subside into a position of relative poverty and inefficiency compared to our more prosperous European neighbours’. It is clear that Clegg will help the BSE campaign run Project Fear II. They should stop doing Britain down.

We do not want a Norway option. We want to secure the best deal for the UK. This means stopping sending £350 million each week to the EU; regaining the ability to make our own trade deals; ending the supremacy of EU law and taking our seat on world bodies.

David Cameron’s negotiation will not achieve fundamental reform. The only way to achieve the best deal for the UK is to Vote Leave.

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 28 October 2015.

Responding to reports that the Prime Minister will today warn of the dangers of adopting a ‘Norwegian model’ outside the EU:

President of Conservatives for Britain, Lord Lawson, said:

“It is disappointing that David Cameron is resorting to talking down Britain’s chances of getting a good deal outside the EU. The Government is clearly worried because their EU negotiations do not seem to be going very well.

Many countries around the world and in Europe have a free trade deal with the EU without being subject to the supremacy of EU law. I believe that Britain can do the same.

The Prime Minister should stop talking Britain down and pretending that the British people have no choice but to accept the supremacy of EU law. If we vote leave, we can have a new UK-EU deal based on free trade without having to accept the supremacy of EU law.”

Labour Leave Co-Chair Kate Hoey, said:

“I believe in the UK and I know we would get a good deal if we leave the EU. So I am shocked that the Prime Minister is now doing down the UK. I want British politicians, not unelected EU judges, deciding our laws.

David Cameron should stop talking the UK down. We’ve known for a while that his negotiations are going nowhere but the fact that he is now talking about what might happen when he loses the referendum is a sign of panic.”

Peter Cruddas, Co-Treasurer of Vote Leave, said:

“David Cameron promised to deliver fundamental change to our relationship with the EU and that he would be prepared to walk away if he couldn’t secure a good deal. Those who supported the PM in his approach will be disappointed to see that he has given up on the renegotiation and instead is campaigning to stay in at all costs.”

The press release issued by Vote Leave on 26 October 2015.

The Prime Minister’s renegotiation is failing. He has dropped nine out of ten demands. This failure has sparked some panic in Downing Street. There’s been three examples over the weekend.

Playing the UN gimmick

The Sunday Telegraph reported that the Prime Minister would take his renegotiation to the UN in an attempt to ensure that all 27 other member states keep to their agreement. We suspected that the PM might do this and said so in last Friday’s weekly update. Number 10 claims that lodging the agreement with the UN will make it ‘legally binding’. UN regulations make clear that registering an agreement does not affect its legal position. This ploy is a classic PR gimmick that further undermines No10’s renegotiation.

Government spin doctors ordered to prop up BSE campaign

The Sunday Times noted that David Cameron called an emergency meeting of special advisors and senior spin doctors today in Downing Street to discuss ‘pro-EU’ stories to give to the BSE campaign. Until recently Downing Street was trying to claim it was not backing either side in the referendum debate and that only when it had secured reforms would the PM decide whether to campaign for ‘leave’ or ‘remain’. They have been rattled by BSE’s failure and Rose’s disastrous interview.

PM rules out two referendums

Over the weekend a number of papers reported that David Cameron has ruled out a second referendum in the event of a ‘Leave’ vote saying that ‘leave means leave’. This ignores the reality that were the Government to lose the referendum, most in his own party think David Cameron would have to resign and a decision about how to handle a ‘leave’ vote will be for his successor. No10 wants Vote Leave to commit to the ‘Norway option’. We have not and will not. After we Vote Leave, Britain will negotiate our own agreement – we will not just take one off the shelf. We will say more about this shortly.

‘Tampon tax’

An amendment to the Finance Bill could force the Chancellor to negotiate with the EU an exemption from VAT for women’s sanitary protection products. The 5% rate is the minimum set by EU law and the UK has no power to cut VAT any further. If we Vote Leave, we will end the supremacy of EU law and regain control of our taxes.