Brexit

George Osborne’s claim that the Treasury thinks Brexit would make you £4,300 worse off has gone down like a cup of cold sick with the Leave camp. While many Brexiteers have hit back in less than polite terms, it’s Leave.EU who win the award for ‘most blunt response’. In light of the claims, Arron Bank’s Brexit group have added a new picture to their Facebook group. The banner reads: ‘If this is our key economic team we are in deep s–t’. It seems that now Leave.EU are out of the race in terms of winning the official designation, they are able to speak freely.

It’s been a good week for Vote Leave after they were given the official designation to campaign for Brexit in the EU referendum. Despite this, they still have a few problems they need to overcome. One of these comes in the form of Rick Astley, the eighties singer. A Belgian expat by the name of Mario Van Poppel has decided to try and cause some problems for the Leave camp’s digital operations. Van Poppel — who is based in London — has purchased several Vote Leave domains. While the official Vote Leave website can be found at www.voteleavetakecontrol.org, a visit to voteleave.com, voteleave.co.uk, voteleave.net or voteleave.org now leads to a video of Rick

Unelected. Technocratic. Exercising a great deal of power over people’s lives, without much in the way of accountability. Staffed by well-meaning, over-educated experts, big on theories and short on experience, and run by a smooth globe-trotting boss who is immaculately plugged into the Davos set. It is not hard to see why the Bank of England, especially under its Canadian Governor Mark Carney, is instinctively pro-EU. It looks across to Brussels and sees an institution very like itself. So it is no great surprise to see the Bank making subtle, and not so subtle, warnings, about the risks of the upcoming referendum. It was at it again today. Its decision

The IMF has published one of the starkest warnings so far against Brexit from an organisation based outside of Britain. The latest set of figures from the International Monetary Fund predict that there will be a 0.3 percentage point dip in Britain’s growth forecast this year, as a result of the referendum. And the IMF warned that if Britain did vote to leave the EU, it could lead to ‘severe regional and global damage’. Both sides have used the statement to exchange in the latest round of tit-for-tat. George Osborne has said ‘for the first time, we’re seeing the direct impact on our economy of the risks of leaving the

Personally, I love referendums. It’s the notion that the people really can have things their way which is so pleasing, unlike the normal state of affairs when every issue of importance is bundled up in a party political package in a general election which makes it effectively impossible to unpick, say, your candidate’s approach to assisted dying from their party’s approach to income tax. My favourites are the ones when, as with the Swiss vote on banning minarets, the people listen carefully to the considered  opinion of big business, the churches and the major parties…and then go and vote exactly the opposite way. I do, however, take a dim view

The news today that the government are to spend over £9m of taxpayers’ money on leaflets for the pro-EU campaign has gone down like a lead balloon in the Brexit camp. In an interview with ITV News, Boris Johnson has blasted the leaflets as ‘a complete waste of money’: ‘I think it’s a complete waste of money. It’s crazy to use quite so much taxpayers’ money on stuff that is basically intended to scare people and to stampede people in one direction.’ .@BorisJohnson: Government is 'crazy' to spend £9.3m 'scaring people' with pro-EU campaign https://t.co/5XSonrxEZnhttps://t.co/0g2uYLLM8J — ITV News (@itvnews) April 6, 2016 Another nail in the coffin when it comes to Johnson’s

For football fans, June 10th – the day Euro 2016 kicks off – is likely to be a more exciting prospect than June 23rd – when Britain votes on whether to stay in the EU. But could lovers of the beautiful game see English football become unstuck in the event of Brexit? Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League has said Britain should stay in the EU; West Ham’s vice chairman Karren Brady has made a similar argument, suggesting that Brexit would have ‘devastating consequences’. But not everyone agrees: former England player Sol Campbell says that with Britain in the EU ‘mediocre overseas footballers, especially from Europe (are)

Most MPs greet the parliamentary recess with a sense of relief. But Conservatives are welcoming this Easter break like the bell at the end of a boxing match. They are exhausted, tempers must be cooled and they now have a fortnight to think about how best to stop their split over the EU referendum becoming something more permanent and debilitating. Some in the party have long hated their own colleagues more than anyone else ,and they have taken full advantage of the excuse the referendum offers for verbal violence. As one Cabinet minister admits: ‘The extreme 10 per cent on either side of the Tory party absolutely loathe each other.’

When Sir Gus O’Donnell was head of the civil service, those who worked under him would have prided themselves in the code that he was supposed to uphold: to be impartial, avoid politics and do their best to make sure the public is not misled. This morning, Sir Gus was involved in what can only be described as a systematic attempt to mislead the public about the EU and the terms in which Britain would leave. His point: that it would take more than two years to negotiate the terms of UK’s exit, and this deadline could only be prolonged with hard bargaining from hostile partners. “Obviously at the end of