£9.3m of Government propaganda - and sovereignty wasn’t mentioned once

The sorry tale of a one-sided barrage of taxpayer-funded pro-EU bias

How Cameron and friends tried to buy the Referendum result

Just prior to the start of the EU Referendum campaign, the Cameron government spent £9.3 million of taxpayers’ money on a Remain campaign leaflet and on online Remain advertising.

The propaganda leaflet was delivered to every home in the land. The digital content was promoted heavily.

The Government's attempted indoctrination by Internet

What is generally never reported – by the BBC or most of the the mainstream media – is that 31% of the £9.3 million that the government spent on its propaganda for Remain went on the internet in the form of 'digital promotion'.

Readers might wish to take stock of that for a moment. After Remain lost, day after day the public were told that Russia or Cambridge Analytica or Arron Banks or someone else bought the result of the Referendum using the Internet.

In fact, the British government spent almost £3 million on a website and on 'digital promotion', in order to influence the result for Remain.

And the Government did so just before any campaign spending limits started, in April 2016.

The propaganda was outrageous

Below is just one example from the Government’s website, set up specifically to promote the Establishment’s message that a vote to leave the EU would be catastrophic for British people :-

“HM Treasury analysis shows Britain’s economy could be tipped into a year-long recession. At least 500,000 jobs could be lost and GDP could be around 3.6% lower following a vote to leave the EU than it would be if we remained in the EU.
“Average real wages could be nearly 3% lower than if we remained in the EU, which would amount to a reduction of £800 a year for someone working full time on the average wage.
“Treasury analysis also shows that if the UK leaves the EU, after 15 years this could mean:

a cost per year equivalent to £4,300 per household in the UK
a hit to tax receipts of £36 billion a year
this is the equivalent of an extra 8p on the basic rate of income tax”

These forecasts were dropped – quietly

Later that year, in testimony to the Commons Treasury Select Committee, Chancellor Philip Hammond was forced to admit that the Treasury’s forecasts and dire threats were wrong.

“The model doesn’t capture all of the potential outcomes”
“Some of those assumptions have already proved to be invalid”
“The Government’s position is that we will not be seeking to pursue any of these modelled outcomes”
- Philip Hammond, evidence to Treasury Select Committee Oct 2016
Readers can watch this testimony here.

Where was any mention of sovereignty or democracy?

In any discussion of membership of the European Union, the issues of national sovereignty and democracy are paramount.

Yet neither of these words appeared even once in the Government’s leaflet. Instead the Government's focus throughout was on intimidating voters by threatening a financial apocalypse – massive jobs losses, huge annual costs to households, emergency budgets, etc.

The parallels with today

Today we see large online advertising campaigns by Remain organisations, urging people to lobby their MPs against Brexit. The money being spent is significant, as we reported recently.

Meanwhile most Brexit organisations struggle on with very little funding. Imagine what we at Brexit Facts4EU.Org could have done with even half of the Government’s pre-Referendum £3m online budget?

Observations

None of the above figures are conjecture. The costings for the breakdown above come from the Cabinet Office and No.10, and are official figures. Despite their europhiliac proclivities, on this the civil servants and politicians came clean – perhaps because they had to admit the figures before the vote, when they still thought they were going to win easily.

Remainers don’t like it when we publish links to our articles on social media. One typical reaction is to deflect attention away from the facts we are reporting, by ignoring the content and asking “Who funds you?”

The answer is simple: public-spirited members of the public do.

Remainers might want to reflect on the fact that our regular monthly donors give us around £300 per month. That’s approximately 0.01% of what the Government spent online, on its Internet activities before the Referendum.

If you can help us out, quick and secure donation methods are below. Thank you.

[ Sources: Electoral Commission | Cabinet Office ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 18 Jul 2019

Click here to go to our news headlines

And please scroll down to COMMENT on the above article.

Something to say about this? Scroll down for reader comments

Since before the EU Referendum, Brexit Facts4EU.Org
has been the most prolific researcher and publisher of Brexit facts in the world.

Supported by MPs, MEPs, & other groups, our work has impact.

We think facts matter. Please donate today, so that we can continue to ensure a clean Brexit is finally delivered.

Any credit card user

Quick One-off

From £5 - £1,000

Monthly

From £3 per month

Paypal Users Only - Choose amount first

Quick One-off

Monthly

PLEASE NOTE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT : You can write your comment under any existing comments below. After you have clicked to preview your comment, you MUST then click on the CAPTCHA system and send you comment, for it to be published. Thank you!

Reader Comments 9

1. Patrick F , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 06:35:

I wonder what focus groups looked at the content of this propaganda before the ok was given.
My comments would have been: i) No arguments/facts for leaving have been given. This is clear bias, when you should be informing the public, not lecturing them.
ii) if you're selling Remain sell the positives, not the negatives. Doom and gloom forecasts are not sexy!
Iii) The job losses figure for example is simply not credible.
iv) Who wrote this? Where are the authors names?
v) Will people who vote Leave be told before polling day that they are old, ignorant, racist, little Englanders, or after?
The leaflet did help me decide. I voted Leave.

2. Sydney Ashurst , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 08:24:

David Cameron did not believe in sovereignty
He dismissed arguments to leave the EU based on 'restoring sovereignty'.
Telling the Andrew Marr Show that leaving the bloc might give "an illusion of sovereignty" but that it would not give the UK any more power.
The definition: supreme power or authority. "the sovereignty of Parliament"
Gina Miller went to the High Court and won.
Theresa May indicated to the EU Council that the Withdrawal Agreement was acceptable.
Parliament then rejected it three times.

3. kzb , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 11:30:

A lot of people get the concepts of sovereignty and power mixed up. They are not the same thing. It's quite possible to be a sovereign state with zero international power.
So we may gain sovereignty but don't mistake that for power and influence.
Remainers would argue our power and influence will be much reduced once we are a sovereign rain-swept little island somewhere off the coast of Europe.
I guess it comes down to what you think is important.
IMHO, the world is now so interconnected the freedom to act is much reduced whether in or out. We still have to play by WTO rules for example.

4. Sydney Ashurst , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 13:04:

kzb, Playing by WTO rules is exactly what we want to do, it does at least allow the UK to negotiate free trade deals with its Commonwealth partners once again.

5. kzb , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 15:58:

Sydney, yes the prospect of cheaper food out of the EU is something that is never really highlighted on the BBC or C4. In fact they keep telling us it will be more expensive.
I wonder if we will ever see it. The plunge in the pound exchange rate has already wiped off much of any gain. Let's hope the currency markets see sense when this is all over.

6. Adam Hiley , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 18:26:

don't join the Yankie led WTO why leave one Foreign Bureaucracy for another I would be very reluctant to get involved with anything to do with the USA

7. Adam Hiley , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 18:38:

Cameron will go down as one of the Worst ever Premiers just as Major Blair Brown & May

8. Zerren Yeoville , Thursday, July 18, 2019, 19:58:

When it comes to the concepts of sovereignty and independence, what the global elite 'Davos class' SAY and what they DO are two different - and incompatible - things. They SAY that sovereignty and independence are meaningless, outdated, anachronistic concepts ... yet when any would-be country tries to attain that sovereign, independent status, that same global elite 'Davos class' will abandon the pretence and move heaven and earth in an attempt to prevent them from doing so. It's not *just* the efforts to thwart Brexit that show this - Catalonia, North Cyprus, Somaliland, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Transdniestria are just a few of the aspiring countries that come to mind. But why?
Why bother trying to stop their independence, if what these would-be countries want is as outdated and anachronistic as the elites pretend?
Why such efforts to prevent the creation of another 'meaningless' line on a map against the will of the secession-minded populations wanting to draw it?
One might almost think that sovereignty and independence are not the obsolete anachronisms they want us to think they are, given the vehement determination to suppress any attempt to achieve them!

9. barbara jell , Friday, July 19, 2019, 00:03:

This utterly outrageous, taxpayer funded propaganda illustrates just how ghastly our Establishment really is.
But hey! It didn't work and we voted to LEAVE the EU! Rabid Remainers and Pariamentarians have been foaming at the mouth ever since and are now on the verge of a collective nervous breakdown at the thought of a No Deal and leaving on WTO terms. I can't wait to see them all carried off by the men in white coats. Come on Boris, show them who's boss!
PS - Please may I have a refund?

Add comment:

Please note: Your email address is never published unless you choose to enter it.