Lie One: Turkey. From the start, David Cameron has hotly denied that there is any prospect of this predominantly Muslim country, with its population of 80 million, joining the EU in the foreseeable future.
As he put it on ITV's Peston's Politics: 'They applied in 1987. At the current rate of progress, they will probably get round to joining in about the year 3000.'
 |
| As voters prepared to go to the polls in a knife-edge contest, Leave supporters said David Cameron's arguments on Turkey, trade, migration and welfare had fallen apart. Pictured, the Prime Minister yesterday |
Leave aside that the Prime Minister has been telling the Turks for years that he is the 'strongest possible advocate' for their admission to the EU — prompting an aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to accuse him on Tuesday of 'taking us for a ride'.
Casting shocking doubt on the PM's frankness, it now emerges that the EU is to reopen talks on Turkish accession as early as next week, when the referendum is safely out of the way.
With plans already afoot for offering visa-free UK entry to 1.5 million special passport holders, can voters be happy about the thought of pressing ahead with admitting such a huge population to the EU, giving them the right to settle in the UK?
Indeed, wouldn't a more honest Prime Minister have at least warned us that this was on the cards before asking us to vote against Brexit?
Lie Two: For months, the Remain camp's key claim has been that if we pulled out, our partners would slap punitive tariffs on British exports. Yesterday, the head of the German equivalent of the CBI laid the scare firmly to rest.
Echoing everything this paper has argued, Markus Kerber of the BDI declared: 'Imposing trade barriers, imposing protectionist measures between our two countries — or between the two political centres, the EU on the one hand and the UK on the other — would be a very, very foolish thing in the 21st century.'
 |
| Jean-Claude Juncker flatly rejected making further changes to freedom of movement rules that enable the EU’s 500million citizens to come to the UK. Pictured, Mr Juncker with Mr Cameron |
Does anyone seriously imagine that, in a fit of pique over British withdrawal, beleaguered Angela Merkel would turn a deaf ear to the pleas of German industry and inflict untold damage on her own people?
After all, a fifth of the cars her country produces are sold in the UK, while other EU members lean heavily on British buyers and holidaymakers. As the second richest market of the 28, we buy from our partners goods and services worth a whopping £61.7billion a year more than we sell to them.
With a figure like that on the balance sheet, it simply defies belief that the EU would start a trade war with an independent UK. Yet this hasn't stopped the Chancellor and the rest of the Remain camp insulting our intelligence by spreading such baseless scares.
Lie Three: In his radio interview yesterday, and repeatedly in the past, the Prime Minister has insisted that if we stay in the EU, we can secure further reforms. Not true, says Jean-Claude Juncker.
In an unequivocal statement, the President of the European Commission declares: 'British policymakers and British voters have to know that there will be no kind of renegotiation. We have concluded a deal with the Prime Minister. He got the maximum he could receive and we gave the maximum we could give.'
He could hardly be clearer. But where does this leave Mr Cameron's assurance that he will fight to improve his pathetic deal (which hasn't even been approved by the European Parliament and may yet be blocked)?
At least Mr Juncker believes in being honest with the electorate. Which is more than can be said for some.
Lie Four: Again on the radio yesterday, as in previous interviews, Mr Cameron made much of his claim that EU migrants are deported if they haven't found work after six months.
How many times must he be told that nobody has been able to produce a shred of evidence of a single migrant being deported under this 'rule'?
But then what can we expect of a PM who seems ready to say anything that pops into his head if it suits his purpose?
He was the man, after all, who said during the Scottish referendum: 'I feel a thousand times more strongly about our United Kingdom than I do about the EU.'
Yet now, when asked about today's vote, he says: 'I feel equally passionate about this.'
Will the real David Cameron please stand up?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3655531/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Day-truth-FOUR-Remain-lies-exploded.html
