That’s it from our EU referendum live blog today - thanks for reading.
Biggest day of campaigning for EU referendum yet
- Speaking at an event in Bristol, Boris Johnson described the leave campaign as “little platoons against the big battalion”, adding: “We are David and Goliath and we know what happened to Goliath.” He insisted that the UK “would prosper and thrive as never before” outside the union.
- David Cameron warned that a vote to leave the EU would be a vote “potentially for a recession”, as the remain campaign claimed leaving would cost every household £4,300.
- Tory MP and the grandson of Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames, accused Johnson of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal that he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
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Jeremy Corbyn said that responsibility for many of Britain’s problem lay not with Brussels but Downing Street. His comments are seen as a response to concerns within the Remain camp that they are encountering significant hostility to the EU on the doorstep in traditional Labour-voting areas.
- Britain Stronger In Europe held a claimed 1,000 events across the UK and encouraged remain campaigners to hold Eurovision Song Contest-themed parties on Saturday night to promote the reasons why Britain should stay in the EU.
- Vote Leave claimed that staying in the EU would cost every household £4,600.
Will Straw, executive director of Britain Stronger In Europe, tweets:
Today's cross-party campaigning to keep Britain #StrongerIn Europe shows energy, enthusiasm & passion on our side pic.twitter.com/NWvPvEearY
— Will Straw (@wdjstraw) May 14, 2016
Thumbs up certainly are popular today it seems...
We signed up more leaflet deliverers for @vote_leave today as we were delivering leaflets! pic.twitter.com/vK2hX0FjXj
— Douglas Carswell MP (@DouglasCarswell) May 14, 2016
Sir John Major has called on Boris Johnson, as well as other Tory leave campaigners such as Michael Gove and former party leader Iain Duncan Smith to apologise for “peddling” false figures about the cost to Britain of being in the EU.
Johnson said: “I think it is reasonable to point out that large numbers of people coming to a country in a way the population have explicitly been told is not going to happen is unfair. It is something that people don’t understand - why they are continually told one thing and another then happens.
“I am in favour of immigration, I’m a believer in it. What is not right is for huge numbers to come here in a way politicians say is not going to happen. That’s where I part company.”
Johnson: ‘this chance will not come again’
Boris Johnson has told a leave event in Bristol that it was time to speak up for freedom across Europe.
This chance will not come again. This is the moment that we all have one equal vote, where everyone in this country can speak truth to power. That truth is that we are better, braver, stronger and greater than those on the remain side are currently saying that we are. I’m telling you that if we vote on June 23 and take back control of our country, our economy and our democracy then we can prosper and thrive and flourish as never before.
Mr Johnson described the campaign to leave the EU as “little platoons against the big battalion”: “We are David and Goliath and we know what happened to Goliath.”
Nice point from novelist Robert Harris:
Endlessly amused by all these Brexit Etonians and sons of peers attacking their opponents as "elitists"
— Robert Harris (@Robert___Harris) May 14, 2016
The Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire tweets:
Why bumbling blonde ambition Boris Johnson will be Brexit's liability in TV debates & interviews https://t.co/U8a9BtzsH7
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) May 14, 2016
Vote Leave has posted a video of Boris Johnson talking to Sky News on its Twitter account (complete with subtitles too):
.@BorisJohnson: 'This is your chance to vote for freedom for this country' #VoteLeave #TakeControlhttps://t.co/MVVwD4VYYR
— Vote Leave (@vote_leave) May 14, 2016
Boris Johnson has been accused by fellow Tory MP Nicholas Soames - the grandson of Winston Churchill – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal that he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for Mid Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
Read more from Toby Helm here:
Bjorn Ulvaeus of Abba fame has been talking to BBC Radio 5 live about Brexit: “It would really make me sad if Britain would leave and what that would mean. It’s like someone you love leaving you. It’s emotional.”
Abba, of course, won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest held in Brighton with Waterloo.
Speaking of Boris, election analyst Mike Smithson tweets:
.@TheEconomist becomes another voice questioning Boris Johnson's truthfulness https://t.co/AvdePerXi3 via
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 14, 2016
Johnson: ‘vote for democracy against bureaucracy’
Boris Johnson is speaking at a vote leave event in Bristol and appealed to the many undecided voters. He says the EU referendum is a chance to “vote for democracy against bureaucracy”.
Outside the union, the UK “would prosper and thrive as never before”, he adds.
Johnson also says that immigration rules should not be decided by Brussels: “I’m in favour of immigration, but it’s got to be immigration by consent, by agreement of the British people.”
Updated
Jeremy Corbyn is asked if Labour has a “specific problem” with anti-Semitism - a question that is echoed in part by a second audience member at the Progress event.
He doesn’t address the question directly: “Anti-Semitism is wrong and has to be totally opposed and totally defeated, period. Okay? Obviously I’m fully aware of the reports and allegations that have been made. Members have been suspended for investigation. I decided that the best thing to do was to appoint Shami Chakrabarti and David Letterman to set up an inquiry.”
The session closes with Progress chair Alison McGovern thanking Corbyn for attending.
Updated
On the subject of abuse, Jeremy Corbyn says he welcomes a “proper debate” in the party:
I sometimes read the papers to realise that people are saying really unkind things about me. They are quite rude really sometimes. I don’t do it. I’m not getting in the gutter with those people.
Much of the abuse on Twitter is written after “a few jars”. He added: “Don’t do it.”
The Labour leader is taking a few questions from the audience at the Progress conference. The first couple concern the disconnect constituents feel about Westminster politics, and the need to end the abusive debate going on within Labour.
Corbyn also says that devolution is important, but adds that devolution of taxation to regions is a “Tory trap”.
Updated
Jeremy Corbyn ends his speech by saying that we are living through an exciting time both in Britain and the US, where new social and political forces are challenging the legacy of the Thatcher and Reagan years. That gets polite applause.
Updated
It’s difficult to grasp the theme of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Progress. He has spoken briefly about the EU, moved on to the crisis in the steel industry and is now talking about human rights and the importance of not selling arms “to people who shoot at trade unionists on the street”.
Corbyn has a pop at those engaging in personal abuse, which earns his first laugh: “I don’t do any kind of personal abuse. I don’t do it and I don’t respond to it. If I did I wouldn’t have anything else to do in my life.”
Corbyn: high bar for Progress
There is generous applause for Jeremy Corbyn as he takes the stage at the Progress annual conference. He says it is the first time he has been invited to address the New Labour pressure group, which was set up 20 years ago.
He notes that he had to be elected as the party’s leader to get an invite: “You guys set a pretty high bar.”
However, there is muted reaction to Corbyn’s opening words about the EU and the need for the UK government to support the posted workers directive.
He gets a warmer response for praising newly elected London mayor Sadiq Khan and attacking the Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith. Khan’s victory was a “total rejection of the dog whistle politics of Lynton Crosby”, the Tory spindoctor.
Cameron says Leave arguments ‘don’t stack up’
More from David Cameron’s address earlier today in Witney. He says that none of the arguments put forward by the Leave campaigners “stack up”.
There is the argument that somehow we would be more sovereign, more independent. Would we be? If we still have to meet all the rules and regulations of the single market when we sell into it, but we have no say over those rules, how does that us more sovereign? How does that make us more independent? It would leave us rather powerless. How does it make us more independent and sovereign if the French prime minister, the Italian prime minister, the German chancellor are going to sit round a table in Europe and discuss the issues that affect us and our continent, and we not even in the room, how does that make us more sovereign? These arguments don’t stack up.
The #BattleBus tour continues with @BorisJohnson and @LiamFoxMP speaking to activists in Bristol #TakeControl pic.twitter.com/TjXWTAlJv3
— Vote Leave (@vote_leave) May 14, 2016
Boris has been a bit slack on the Twitter front, by the way - his last tweet was on 5 May...
Jeremy Corbyn has arrived at the TUC’s Congress House in central London for the Progress annual conference, Observer policy editor Daniel Boffey reports.
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock is campaigning in Wales with shadow justice minister Jo Stevens.
Lost him canvassing in Pentwyn May 2015. Found today! Neil Kinnock & I are with the #InCrowd #LabourIn #StrongerIn pic.twitter.com/XqMaHOOpeO
— Jo Stevens MP (@JoStevensLabour) May 14, 2016
More Eurovision-related campaign news arrives courtesy of Stronger In, which has issued a Community Meeting Supporter Pack Eurovision Party Special! (their exclamation mark, not mine).
Download our essential #Eurovision pack ready for tonight - full of the facts you need to know: https://t.co/odbh5d7pCc
— Stronger In (@StrongerIn) May 14, 2016
“The Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday 14th May will be a great opportunity to bring friends and family together for a fun party and to spread the word about the campaign. Eurovision celebrates all that is weird and wonderful about Europe, and we hope that you and your guests enjoy the fun, music and discussion!” it reads.
Not sure that’s the sort of Eurovision party I want to go to this evening...
It’s a thumbs up from David Cameron in Oxfordshire as the remain campaign stages a claimed 1,000 events across the UK today.
There are over 1,000 #StrongerIn events this weekend showing what a truly cross-party, UK-wide campaign we are. pic.twitter.com/B2cuMChczB
— Stronger In (@StrongerIn) May 14, 2016
Saturday’s EU referendum campaigning key events:
- David Cameron has echoed warnings made this week by Bank of England governor Mark Carney and IMF chief Christine Lagarde that a Brexit vote could tip the UK back into recession. “I am absolutely convinced that our economic security will be better if we stay in a reformed European Union and it will be seriously at risk if we were to leave,” he said at a remain event in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire. “If we vote to leave on June 23 we will be voting for higher prices, we will be voting for fewer jobs, we will be voting for lower growth, we will be voting potentially for a recession. That is the last thing our economy needs.” The prime minister also said that an end to Britain’s EU membership would hit infrastructure funding from the European Investment Bank.
- Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is blaming Downing Street, rather than Brussels, for many of the UK’s problems as he campaigns for the remain side. “People in this country face many problems: from insecure jobs, low pay and unaffordable housing to stagnating living standards and environmental degradation, and the responsibility for them lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels,” he will say.
- The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign has released a new poster claiming that households stand to lose £4,300 in the event of Brexit.
- Vote Leave has hit back, claiming that staying in the EU would cost every household £4,600. It also says that EU membership costs the UK £50m a day, “while EU regulations undermine our economy, democracy and borders”.
- Boris Johnson continues to back the leave campaign with an address at an event in the south west later today.
Updated
Thanks to Simon Richards, chief executive of something called the Freedom Association (a “non-partisan, centre-right, libertarian pressure group”, apparently) for giving me a chance to mention the Eurovision Song Contest, which is being held in Stockholm tonight.
The UK is a world leader in music & showbiz, but gets nowhere in Eurovision - just like in the EU. Let's rejoin the wider world #VoteLeave
— Simon Richards (@simplysimontfa) May 14, 2016
Of course the UK does not have a great record in the contest in recent years, with the most recent victory coming back in 1997 courtesy of Katrina and the Waves. Neither do the bookies rate this year’s entrants, Joe and Jake, with Sweden and Russia the favourites.
Then again, would a shock UK win be some sort of cosmic sign that the rest of Europe really doesn’t want a Brexit?
And if you still need convincing, read this piece by Martin Belam.
Updated
This is an argument we haven’t heard thus far in the EU debate: a sharp fall in the number of pirate attacks off Somalia is “incontrovertible proof” that the union helps protect Britain.
That’s the claim made by shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry, who highlights figures from the EU’s Operation Atalanta counter-piracy mission showing the number of attacks on ships fell from 176 in 2011 to just two in 2014 and none last year.
After visiting Atalanta’s base at Joint Forces Command in Northwood, west London, Thornberry said:
We all remember the havoc and fear being caused by piracy just a few years ago, including British citizens being taken hostage. The potential economic damage to the UK in terms of lost trade, higher insurance and other costs was huge. But now, as a result of Operation Atalanta, we have gone well over a year without an attack, and more than three years without any ships or crews being seized. That is not something we could have achieved on our own, and it is a powerful reminder that it is only through collaboration and co-operation with our European partners that we can tackle the shared international challenges we face.
Remain backer Alastair Campbell - the former Labour spindoctor - has been speaking on the Week at Westminster on BBC Radio 4 this morning. He says that Boris Johnson appears to be “bumbling and busking” his way through the campaign and either doesn’t have the arguments - or doesn’t believe in them.
Although his antics such as demolishing Cornish pasties and downing pints are amusing, people are starting to see through the former London mayor, Campbell says: “They want serious arguments.”
He adds that the “pack of lies” the leave campaign has printed on the side of its battle bus shows they are worried about their prospects.
Brexit would tip UK back into recession, Cameron warns
David Cameron has echoed the warning of Bank of England governor Mark Carney - and IMF chief Christine Lagarde - this week that a vote to leave the European Union could tip British back into recession.
Speaking as he unveiled a new campaign poster at an event in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire, the prime minister said the UK would take an “immediate and sustained hit” if it votes for Brexit in the referendum on 23 June.
I am absolutely convinced that our economic security will be better if we stay in a reformed European Union and it will be seriously at risk if we were to leave. If we vote to leave on June 23 we will be voting for higher prices, we will be voting for fewer jobs, we will be voting for lower growth, we will be voting potentially for a recession. That is the last thing our economy needs.”
His audience were reportedly less than thrilled by the speech:
David Cameron's unveiling a poster in a fleece.
— Tim Stanley (@timothy_stanley) May 14, 2016
Cameron surrounded by bored youth holding IN posters.
— Tim Stanley (@timothy_stanley) May 14, 2016
.@David_Cameron shows how the economy could be hit to the tune of £4,300 per household per year if we leave Europe pic.twitter.com/DDvPa6VsIY
— Stronger In Press (@StrongerInPress) May 14, 2016
Updated
While the Vote Leave campaign claims that staying in the EU would costs every household £4,600, Stronger In puts the cost of leaving at £4,300 apiece:
£4,300- that's the cost of leaving the EU for every household, according to official analysis by HM Treasury. Pls RT pic.twitter.com/PY4IHOdSUy
— Stronger In (@StrongerIn) May 14, 2016
Former Labour business secretary and Remain campaigner Chuka Umunna tweets:
Stephen Hawking couldn't be clearer: #Brexit would be a DISASTER for UK science. https://t.co/ct3RGxdbbz pic.twitter.com/220joGDNDB #StrongerIn
— Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna) May 14, 2016
In response to David Cameron unveiling a new Britain Stronger in Europe campaign poster, Vote Leave has published a series of graphics highlighting what it claims is the cost of staying in the EU.
Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott said:
David Cameron ... is failing to be honest with hardworking families about the costs of the EU. We hand £50 million to Brussels every day while EU regulations undermine our economy, democracy and borders. On 23 June it is safer to take control and Vote Leave.”
Updated
Boris Johnson - figurehead of the leave campaign - will be speaking in the south west today, while the Grassroots Out campaign is mounting a nationwide blitz with events including a rally in Chester addressed by Conservative former cabinet minister Owen Paterson and Ukip migration spokesman Steven Woolfe.
Mr Paterson will say: “If we vote to remain, we will be consigning ourselves to being a colony of an EU superstate, with more integration and increasingly diminished British influence. If we vote Leave, we will be making the safer choice, and securing the future freedom and prosperity of this region and the UK at large.
'Lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels' - Corbyn
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is trying to rally support among Labour voters to stay in the EU. He will launch a highly partisan attack on the Conservatives, saying responsibility for many of the UK’s problems “lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels”.
His comments are likely to be seen as a response to concerns within the Remain camp that they are encountering significant hostility to the EU on the doorstep in traditional Labour-voting areas.
Corbyn - who for many years opposed EU membership - will highlight the importance of European regulations in underpinning workers’ rights, which would be jeopardised by a Leave vote:
People in this country face many problems: from insecure jobs, low pay and unaffordable housing to stagnating living standards and environmental degradation, and the responsibility for them lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels. The Tories and Ukip are on record as saying they would like to cut back our workplace rights and many unscrupulous employers would have our rights at work off us if they had the chance.”
Updated
Another day, another warning about Brexit from the government, with David Cameron saying that leaving the European Union will cost Britain billions of pounds in infrastructure investment.
The prime minister said a vote to leave would mean an end to Britain’s membership of the European Investment Bank (EIB) which has poured more than £16bn into UK projects in the past three years.
Vital projects across every region of the UK have been financed by the EIB. Not only would leaving the EU see us wave goodbye to this crucial funding - but, with a smaller economy hit by new trading barriers and job losses, it’s unlikely we’d be able to find that money from alternative sources.”
The projects that have benefited from EIB support include new trains for the east coast main line, extending the M8 motorway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and expanding Oxford University’s research and teaching facilities.
Updated
Cameron, Corbyn and Johnson hit the campaign trail
Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the EU referendum campaign, which is expected to move up a gear as political leaders from across the main parties unite to make their case for Britain to remain in - or leave - the bloc.
David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Farron and Caroline Lucas are each expected to speak at separate events for the Remain campaign, which will hold more than 1,000 rallies across the UK today.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, former cabinet minister Owen Paterson and Ukip’s immigration spokesman Steven Woolfe will address voters at Vote Leave and Grassroots Out campaign events.
The prime minister will kick off the biggest day of campaigning yet as he unveils a new Remain poster, warning British households they stand to lose £4,300 in the event of a Brexit.
He will say: “This is a day unlike any other: politicians of every stripe taking to the streets with the same message. Because we face a vote unlike any other, one which will shape our country for decades – even generations – to come.
“And not in some abstract or remote way. We’ll see the effects of this referendum in our lives: the jobs we do, the opportunities our children have, the public services we rely on, the prices we pay, and the bills that land on our doormats.”
