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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Chilcot says his Iraq inquiry report to be published on Wednesday 6 July - Politics live

Sir John Chilcot
Sir John Chilcot Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Afternoon summary

  • Sir John Chilcot has announced that his long-awaited report into the Iraq war will be published on Wednesday 6 July.
  • The EU referendum campaign has intensified with David Cameron and Boris Johnson, effectively the main figureheads for Remain and Leave respectively, both giving major speeches on the subject. They were both long and substantial speeches, but both men may overstated their case. Cameron was accused of scaremongering after he included a passage in his speech suggesting that leaving the EU could increase the chance of war in Europe. He said:

Isolationism has never served this country well. Whenever we turn our back on Europe, sooner or later we come to regret it ...

The serried rows of white headstones in lovingly-tended Commonwealth war cemeteries stand as silent testament to the price that this country has paid to help restore peace and order in Europe.

Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking?

I would never be so rash as to make that assumption.

It’s barely been 20 years since war in the Balkans and genocide on our continent in Srebrenica. In the last few years, we have seen tanks rolling into Georgia and Ukraine. And of this I am completely sure.

The European Union has helped reconcile countries which were once at each others’ throats for decades. Britain has a fundamental national interest in maintaining common purpose in Europe to avoid future conflict between European countries.

And that requires British leadership, and for Britain to remain a member. The truth is this: what happens in our neighbourhood matters to Britain.

Cameron’s claim that the EU has helped maintain peace in the EU is relatively uncontentious, but his assertion that this requires continued British membership is more questionable. Johnson claimed that even Cameron himself did not believe what he was saying. But Johnson’s own speech was overshadowed by what he said in the Q&A afterwards, when he appeared to blame the EU for provoking Russia into invading Ukraine. (See 1.44pm.) This lead to Jack Straw, the former Labour foreign secretary, and others calling him a Putin apololgist.

  • Jeremy Corbyn is saying that Labour MPs should stop criticising colleagues - including himself, he implies - on TV. He is going to deliver the message at tonight’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, but his comments were released in advance. He says:

We also need to reflect on the impact of what we do and say here on the public outside, across the country. I don’t expect, or even want, blind loyalty, but members and supporters expect us all to focus on taking on the Tories – and for our debates to be focused on policy, not personality.

Members also tell me that they don’t think Labour MPs should be parading on the media to give a running commentary on our party. If we are on the media we are there to give our verdict on this failed and divisive government, not on each other.

He is also going to tell the PLP the election results were “mixed” for Labour. He says:

Jon Trickett set us the target of closing the gap with the Tories at the 2015 general election. Last year we were nearly seven points behind. The projection from Thursday’s results by the BBC and Professor John Curtice shows that nationally we are now a point ahead of the Tories in our national share of the vote.

Last week we won all four mayoral elections, including the two gains in London and Bristol, we made a net gain in the number of Labour councils across England, we held councils across the south, we scored the second best result in Wales since devolution, and we made a net gain of three police and crime commissioners.

But let’s be clear. The results were mixed. We are not yet doing enough to win in 2020. This is only the first stage in our task of building a winning electoral majority, attracting voters from all the other parties and mobilising those who have been turned off politics altogether – as we did last week in Bristol and London.

  • Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, has been giving a public dressing down after refusing to appear before MPs. As the Press Association reports, Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Commons Treasury committee, said Elliott had only agreed to give evidence to a hearing this afternoon after they had issued a parliamentary order summonsing him to appear. He told Elliott:

This is the first time that certainly I’ve ever felt the need to issue such a thing [parliamentary order] in order to secure a witness. I think frankly the difficulty of getting you here is scarcely consistent with the application that you have put to be the lead campaigner for leaving the EU. Do you have any appreciation of what it looks like to a group of MPs that you are telling them you would rather go to Switzerland than turn up?

Elliott claimed it had always been his intention to give evidence to the committee - which is looking at the economic costs and benefits of EU membership - at “the earliest possible opportunity”.

That’s all from me.

Thanks for the comments.

Here is Sir John Chilcot’s letter to David Cameron about setting the date for publication of his report.

Chilcot’s letter to Cameron
Chilcot’s letter to Cameron Photograph: Iraq inquiry

And here is Cameron’s letter to Chilcot.

Cameron’s reply to Chilcot
Cameron’s reply to Chilcot Photograph: Iraq inquiry

Chilcot report into Iraq war to be published on Wednesday 6 July

The Iraq inquiry has announced that its report will be published on Wednesday 6 July. Here is the press statement it has put out.

Sir John Chilcot and the prime minister have agreed that the Iraq inquiry’s report will be published on Wednesday 6 July 2016, it was announced today.

The date was confirmed in correspondence between Sir John and the prime minister and follows completion of both the report and the national security checking process. This checking process is a standard procedure for inquiries and ensures that government ministers meet their obligations to safeguard national security and under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) when publishing the inquiry’s report. Now this checking process is complete, the Inquiry can prepare its 2.6m word report for publication.

The Iraq inquiry was set up in June 2009 by former prime minister Gordon Brown to consider the UK’s involvement in Iraq from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009. The scope of the report is unprecedented; covering decisions over a nine year period to establish what happened and to identify lessons that can be learned. To construct an accurate account of events and actions the inquiry received evidence from over 150 witnesses, held more than 130 sessions of oral evidence, and analysed more than 150,000 government documents as well as open source material. The report and supporting documents will be published on the inquiry’s website alongside a guide on how to read the report. Arrangements are being made so that families of those who died as a result of the conflict in Iraq can have early access to the report on the day of publication. Details will be available in due course.

In his letter to the prime minister, Sir John Chilcot said:

“... National security checking of the Inquiry’s report has now been completed, without the need for any redactions to appear in the text. I am grateful for the speed with which it was accomplished.”

On selecting 6 July for publication, he went on to say:

“This will allow suitable time for the inquiry to prepare the 2.6m word report for publication, including final proof reading, formatting, printing and the steps required for electronic publication.”

Updated

Sadiq Khan has been tweeting about his new job as mayor of London.

My colleague Ewen MacAskill has written an analysis of David Cameron’s speech, and his suggestion that leaving the EU would put peace at risk. Ewen is a bit sceptical. Here is an excerpt.

Decades of trade and political cooperation on the continent through the EU and its predecessors have undoubtedly helped to make war between the major European powers less likely – unthinkable, even. But the the key word is “helped”.

And here is the full article.

And this is from Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who is now head of the ALDE liberal group in the European parliament.

Downing Street has also taken a swipe at Boris Johnson over his Russia/Ukraine remarks.

This is from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves.

In his speech Boris Johnson posed five questions for the Remain camp. (See 11.55am.)

My colleague Rowena Mason has been looking at the possible answers.

Support for Britain staying in the EU among business leaders appears to be hardening according to a new survey. A poll by the Institute of Directors of 1,224 of its members found 63% backed Remain, up from 60% in February, while 29% supported Leave, down from 31% in the previous survey.

Updated

EU referendum - latest polling

Here are three blogs summarising the latest polling on the EU referendum.

The What UK Thinks poll of polls

EU referendum poll of polls
EU referendum poll of polls Photograph: What UK Thinks

The Financial Times’s Brexit poll tracker (subscription)

FT’s Brexit poll tracker
FT’s Brexit poll tracker Photograph: FT

Bloomberg’s Brexit tracker

Bloomberg’s Brexit tracker
Bloomberg’s Brexit tracker Photograph: Bloomberg

Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP and former shadow business secretary, is also having a go at Boris Johnson over his Russia/Ukraine comments. He said:

The EU referendum campaign has brought out the worst in the former mayor of London, Boris Johnson. First there was his nonsense about President Obama’s Kenyan ancestry. Now he’s become an apologist for President Putin. And this is the man who wants to become our next prime minister.

Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, has announced today that he will be voting to leave the EU. He said:

It is in our interest for the EU to have a much stronger defence capability, the issue is whether it is in our interest to be part of it. If Britons felt sufficient commitment to the European ideal it would be right to join it and encourage it. But the difficult truth is our geography, history, culture and economic interest produce a much more qualified commitment to that ideal than that of our continental partners.

I want my country to have a positive role in the world, not a negative one. The only positive role on offer is a global internationalist one. Let’s take it, embrace our unique global advantages and assist our European neighbours with resolving the politics and democratic accountability of ever closer union, rather than obstructing them.

Crispin Blunt
Crispin Blunt Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

In his speech Boris Johnson suggested that the EU was partly responsible for the rise of the far-right in Europe. He said:

In Austria the far-right have just won an election for the first time since the 1930s. The French National Front are on the march in France, and Marine le Pen may do well in the Presidential elections. You could not say that EU integration is promoting either mutual understanding or moderation, and the economic consequence range from nugatory to disastrous.

In response, in a statement sent out by Britain Stronger in Europe, David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, said this claim was bizarre.

The claim by Boris Johnson today that the EU is fuelling the far right is especially bizarre since he has caved into the call of the far right to break up the EU. There is nothing hopeful about making common cause with Mrs Le Pen.

Carl Bildt also labels Johnson an 'apologist for Putin'

Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and a former EU and UN special envoy to the Balkans, has posted another tweet about Boris Johnson. He is also accusing Johnson of being a Putin apologist.

Jack Straw accuses Boris Johnson of being a 'Putin apologist'

In a press notice put out by Britain Stronger in Europe, Jack Straw, the Labour former home secretary and foreign secretary, has described Boris Johnson as a “Putin apologist” on the basis of what he said about Russia and Ukraine. (See 1.44pm.) Straw said:

Boris Johnson has plumbed new depths today by joining the likes of Farage, Le Pen and Wilders in blaming the EU, rather than Vladimir Putin, for what has happened in Ukraine.

If further evidence were needed about the careless disregard for our security demonstrated by Leave campaigners, by being a Putin apologist, Johnson has provided it.

Being part of the world’s largest free trade market is a source of economic expansion and empowerment. Leaving would destroy the opportunities and life chances of people across our country for generations to come.

Flamboyant rhetoric is no substitute for a plan for our country. Today was further proof that leaving is a leap in to the dark that is too big a risk to take.

Britain Stronger in Europe, like Edward Lucas (see 2.33pm), also points out that Johnson used a Telegraph article in 2014 to firmly blame President Putin for the conflict in Ukraine. In that article Johnson also said it was time to make Europe’s common foreign security policy actually work.

Jack Straw
Jack Straw Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and a former EU and UN special envoy to the Balkans, has said that Boris Johnson’s comments about Russia and Ukraine (see 1.44pm) are “complete nonsense”.

Radoslaw Sikorski, the former Polish foreign minister, has used Twitter to express concern about Boris Johnson’s comments about Ukraine. (See 1.44pm.)

The journalist Edward Lucas thinks Boris Johnson has also changed his stance on Russia and Ukraine.

The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon points out that what Boris Johnson was saying in his speech and Q&A this morning about the argument that the EU has helped to maintain peace in Europe is somewhat at odds with what he says in his 2014 Churchill biography.

Barnet's chief executive quits after voting blunder in mayoral elections

Turning away from the EU for a moment, you may remember that there was a problem with voting in Barnet, in London, on Thursday. Hundreds of people were turning away from polling stations in the morning because the wrong paperwork had been distributed.

As the Press Association reports, this has cost Barnet’s chief executive his job.

Barnet Council chief executive Andrew Travers is leaving by “mutual agreement” after a blunder left many people in the area unable to vote.

An investigation was launched after it emerged that thousands of names were missing from electoral lists at all of the north London authority’s 155 polling stations.

Many residents attempting to vote in the mayoral and London Assembly elections were turned away, including the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis.

A council spokesman said: “Following the events during the morning of Thursday’s elections, it has been decided, by mutual agreement, that Andrew Travers, chief executive, will leave the council.”

Boris Johnson's EU speech - Summary and analysis

This was easily Boris Johnson’s best speech in the EU campaign. You could tell he was being serious because Vote Leave sent out a text in advance, and Johnson actually stuck to it. The speech was titled “The liberal cosmopolitan case to Vote Leave” and at its heart was a bold claim about Brexit being “the great project of European liberalism” - based on Johnson’s argument that the EU has lost democratic legitimacy. He was particularly interesting on the origins of the EU and on the attempt to create a European consciousness. But the speech also included a long (and impressively dull) passage intended to counter the argument that single market membership has enhanced trade.

But some of the most interesting material came in the Q&A session afterwards. David Cameron takes questions after his speeches, but normally only about three. To his credit, Johnson took a wider range of questions, and seemed genuinely willing to engage with reporters.

Here are the key points.

  • Johnson said that David Cameron himself did not believe Cameron’s claim about Brexit increasing the chances of war. Asked about this in the Q&A he said:

I don’t think the prime minister can seriously believe that leaving the EU would trigger war on the European continent given that he was prepared only a few months ago to urge that people should vote leave if they failed to get a substantially reformed European Union. We have not got a substantially reformed European Union ...

I think it is very, very curious that the prime minister is now calling this referendum and warning us that world war three is about to break out unless we vote to remain. I think that is not the most powerful argument I’ve heard.

He said scaremongering of this kind was unpatriotic.

The biggest single threat that I can see is that people on the Remain camp will continue to run scare stories about world war three, or bubonic plague, or whatever it happens to be, and they may in the end inadvertently do material damage to people’s confidence about this country.

And he urged Cameron to think “very hard” before making claims of this kind.

I think that people should think very hard before they make these kind of warnings. I don’t believe that leaving the EU would cause world war three to break out on the European continent.

  • Johnson said the EU had undermined peace in Bosnia and Ukraine, not enhanced it. It was Nato that guaranteed peace in Europe, not the EU, he said. In his speech he said that he had witnessed this first-hand as a journalist in Bosnia.

I saw the disaster when the EU was charged with sorting out former Yugoslavia, and I saw how Nato sorted it out.

In his Q&A Johnson went further, appearing to blame the EU for provoking Russia to intervene in Ukraine. He said:

The European Union, as you will remember, exacerbated the problems by the premature decision to recognise Croatia. And if you want an example of EU foreign policy making on the hoof, and the EU’s pretensions to running a defence policy that have caused real trouble, then look at what has happened in Ukraine. I think it is very, very important that we don’t muddle up the role of the EU with the role of Nato ...

What worries me now is that it is the European Union’s pretensions to run a foreign policy and a defence policy that risk undermining Nato. We saw what happened in Bosnia. We’ve seen what happened in the Ukraine ...

All the EU can do in this question, in my view, is cause confusion and, as we’ve seen in the Balkans, I’m afraid a tragic incident, and in the Ukraine things went wrong as well.

The argument that the EU provoked Russia into invading Ukraine is one that has also been made by the Ukip leader Nigel Farage. The Stop the War Coalition has also published a similar analysis.

  • He claimed Brexit was now ‘the great project of European liberalism”.

I find if offensive, insulting, irrelevant and positively cretinous to be told – sometimes by people who can barely speak a foreign language – that I belong to a group of small-minded xenophobes; because the truth is it is Brexit that is now the great project of European liberalism, and I am afraid that it is the European Union – for all the high ideals with which it began, that now represents the ancien regime.

It is we who are speaking up for the people, and it is they who are defending an obscurantist and universalist system of government that is now well past its sell by date and which is ever more remote from ordinary voters.

  • He said it was “bizarre” that Cameron was claiming to have reformed the EU when that was not the case.

It is above all bizarre for the Remain campaign to say that after the UK agreement of February we are now living in a “reformed” EU, when there has been not a single change to EU competences, not a single change to the Treaty, nothing on agriculture, nothing on the role of the court, nothing of any substance on borders – nothing remotely resembling the agenda for change that was promised in the 2013 Bloomberg speech ...

To call this a reformed EU is an offence against the Trades Descriptions Act, or rather the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive that of course replaced the Trades Descriptions Act in 2008. The EU system is a ratchet hauling us ever further into a federal structure.

  • He said the government’s declaration that it would cut net migration below 100,000 when this was not happening was “deeply corrosive of popular trust in democracy”.

It is deeply corrosive of popular trust in democracy that every year UK politicians tell the public that they can cut immigration to the tens of thousands – and then find that they miss their targets by hundreds of thousands, so that we add a population the size of Newcastle every year, with all the extra and unfunded pressure that puts on the NHS and other public services.

  • He said the EU’s trade record was very poor, and that the deals it struck did not favour the UK.

As for the argument that we need the muscle of EU membership, if we are to do trade deals – well, look, as I say, at the results after 42 years of membership. The EU has done trade deals with the Palestinian authority and San Marino. Bravo. But it has failed to conclude agreements with India, China or even America.

Why? Because negotiating on behalf of the EU is like trying to ride a vast pantomime horse, with 28 people blindly pulling in different directions. For decades deals with America have been blocked by the French film industry, and the current TTIP negotiations are stalled at least partly because Greek feta cheese manufacturers object to the concept of American feta. They may be right, aesthetically, but it should not be delaying us in this country.

Global trade is not carried on by kind permission of people like Peter Mandelson. People and businesses trade with each other, and always will, as long as they have something to buy and sell.

But it is notable that even when the EU has done a trade deal, it does not always seem to work in Britain’s favour. In ten out of the last 15 deals, British trade with our partners has actually slowed down, rather than speeded up, after the deal was done.

  • He said there was no public support for federalism in Europe because there was no shared sense of European identity.

There is simply no common political culture in Europe; no common media, no common sense of humour or satire; and – this is important – no awareness of each other’s politics, so that the European Union as a whole has no common sense of the two things you need for a democracy to work efficiently. You need trust, and you need shame. There is no trust, partly for the obvious reason that people often fail to understand each other’s languages. There is no shame, because it is not clear who you are letting down if you abuse the EU system.

That is why there is such cavalier waste and theft of EU funds: because it is everybody’s money, it is nobody’s money.

  • He sidestepped a question about whether he would be willing to serve in government under Cameron if offered a cabinet job after the referendum. When it was put to him in the Q&A that he might find it hard to serve in government under Cameron in the light of what he is saying about how Cameron has misled voters, Johnson said he as now just “a humble, ex-municipal toenail now dedicated to serving the cause of this country”. He refused to answer the question.
  • He sidestepped a question about whether it would be right for a future Conservative leader to hold another referendum on leaving the EU if Britain votes to stay.
Boris Johnson delivering his EU speech
Boris Johnson delivering his EU speech Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Updated

Here is the full text of Boris Johnson’s speech.

I will be posting a summary very soon.

Here’s a Guardian video a clip from David Cameron’s speech.

David Cameron: EU membership keeps our people safe

Here is Lucy Thomas, deputy director of Britain Stronger in Europe, on Boris Johnson’s speech.

Johnson says he does not accept that leaving the EU would leave to world war three breaking out.

He says he wants Washington to keep its focus very much on Nato.

He says the EU has not been successful in the Balkans or in Ukraine.

And that’s it. The Q&A is over.

I will post a summary and reaction shortly.

Updated

Q: George Osborne says the next Tory leader will have to be serious, sober and principled. Do you agree?

Johnson says he is glad to hear Osborne is principled.

Q: You have accused Cameron of misleading the public. You could not serve in government with him, could you?

Johnson says he is a “humble, ex-municipal toenail”.

He does not address the question directly.

Q: Could a future Conservative leader or prime minister bring this back for another vote if Britain votes to stay in?

Johnson says he is confident people will vote to leave the EU.

Q: What do you see as the risks of Brexit?

Johnson says people running scare stories about world war three, or the bubonic plague or whatever, may undermine people’s confidence in what Britain can achieve.

Q: [From ITV’s Robert Peston] In your book on Churchill you said the EU had been successful at keeping peace. Have you changed your mind?

Johnson says that Churchill wanted a European union, but he wanted Britain to play no part in it.

Q: [From Michael Crick] If the EU is so bad, shouldn’t we stay in it and reform it?

Johnson says he understands this argument. But Britain has tried to achieve reform, without success, he says.

The best approach is for Britain to leave, and to make the European elites “think again”.

Johnson's Q&A

Q: Hasn’t Cameron got a point about the EU promoting peace?

Johnson says that if Cameron really thought leaving the EU would lead to “world war three” breaking out, he would not have threatened to leave if he did not get his way in his EU renegotiation.

He says Nato has guaranteed peace.

He says if you want an example of where the EU has muddled up its foreign policy, Ukraine is a good one.

Johnson's peroration

Johnson is now on his peroration.

It is we in the Leave Camp – not they – who stand in the tradition of the liberal cosmopolitan European enlightenment – not just of Locke and Wilkes, but of Rousseau and Voltaire; and though they are many, and though they are well-funded, and though we know that they can call on unlimited taxpayer funds for their leaflets, it is we few, we happy few who have the inestimable advantage of believing strongly in our cause, and that we will be vindicated by history; and we will win for exactly the same reason that the Greeks beat the Persians at Marathon – because they are fighting for an outdated absolutist ideology, and we are fighting for freedom.

That is the choice on June 23

It is between taking back control of our money – or giving a further £100bn to Brussels before the next election

Between deciding who we want to come here to live and work – or letting the EU decide

Between a dynamic liberal cosmopolitan open global free-trading prosperous Britain, or a Britain where we remain subject to a undemocratic system devised in the 1950s that is now actively responsible for low growth and in some cases economic despair

Between believing in the possibility of hope and change in Europe – or accepting that we have no choice but to knuckle under.

Johnson sings in German to prove he's not a little Englander

Johnson is now on to the third and final “myth” he wants to address. (See 11.37am.)

To to get to the third key point of the Remainers – if we leave the EU we will not, repeat not, be leaving Europe. Of all the arguments they make, this is the one that infuriates me the most. I am a child of Europe. I am a liberal cosmopolitan and my family is a genetic UN peacekeeping force.

I can read novels in French and I can sing the Ode to joy in German and if they keep accusing me of being a Little Englander, I will ...

At this point someone challenges him to do so. After a slight hesitation, he obliges with a few words.

He goes on:

Both as editor of the Spectator and Mayor of London I have promoted the teaching of modern European languages in our schools. I have dedicated much of my life to the study of the origins of our common – our common -European culture and civilization in ancient Greece and Rome.

So I find if offensive, insulting, irrelevant and positively cretinous to be told – sometimes by people who can barely speak a foreign language – that I belong to a group of small-minded xenophobes; because the truth is it is Brexit that is now the great project of European liberalism, and I am afraid that it is the European Union – for all the high ideals with which it began, that now represents the ancien regime.

Johnson moves on to this vision of what Britain will be like if it leaves the EU.

If we leave on June 23, we can still provide leadership in so many areas. We can help lead the discussions on security, on counter-terrorism, on foreign and defence policy, as we always have. But all those conversation can be conducted within an intergovernmental framework, and without the need for legal instruments enforced by the European Court of Justice. We will still be able to cooperate on the environment, on migration, on science and technology; we will still have exchanges of students.

We will trade as much as ever before, if not more. We will be able to love our fellow Europeans, marry them, live with them, share the joy of discovering our different cultures and languages – but we will not be subject to the jurisdiction of a single court and legal system that is proving increasingly erratic and that is imitated by no other trading group.

We will not lose influence in Europe or around the world – on the contrary, you could argue we will gain in clout. We are already drowned out around the table in Brussels; we are outvoted far more than any other country – 72 times in the last 20 years, and ever more regularly since 2010; and the Eurozone now has a built-in majority on all questions.

Johnson says he has five questions that Leave must relentlessly ask the Remain campaign.

1 - How can you possibly control EU immigration into this country?

2 - The living wage is an excellent policy, but how will you stop it being a big pull factor for uncontrolled EU migration, given that it is far higher than minimum wages in other EU countries?

3 - How will you prevent the European Court from interfering further in immigration, asylum, human rights, and all kinds of matters which have nothing to do with the so-called Single Market?

4 - Why did you give up the UK veto on further moves towards a fiscal and political union?

5 - How can you stop us from being dragged in, and from being made to pay?

Johnsons says he does not accept that the EU is a force for peace.

I saw the disaster when the EU was charged with sorting out former Yugoslavia, and I saw how Nato sorted it out.

Johnson says the EU is centralising when it should be devolving.

As Jean-Claude Juncker has himself remarked with disapproval, “too many Europeans are returning to a national or regional mindset”. In the face of that disillusionment, the European elites are doing exactly the wrong thing. Instead of devolving power, they are centralizing ...

In Austria the far-right have just won an election for the first time since the 1930s. The French National Front are on the march in France, and Marine le Pen may do well in the Presidential elections. You could not say that EU integration is promoting either mutual understanding or moderation, and the economic consequence range from nugatory to disastrous.

The answer to the problems of Europe today is not “more Europe”, if that means more forcible economic and political integration. The answer is reform, and devolution of powers back to nations and people, and a return to intergovernmentalism, at least for this country – and that means Vote Leave on June 23.

Johnson says today the EU flag is flying in Europe because it is Schuman day.

It is the birthday of the founder of this project, and the elites have decreed that it should be properly marked.

Do we feel loyalty to that flag? Do our hearts pitter-patter as we watch it flutter over public buildings? On the contrary. The British share with other EU populations a growing sense of alienation, which is one of the reasons turn-out at European elections continues to decline.

Johnson says there is 'no common political culture in Europe'

Johnson says the EU has failed to create this European consciousness.

Almost 60 years after the Treaty of Rome, I do not see many signs that this programme is working. The European elites have indeed created an ever-denser federal system of government, but at a pace that far exceeds the emotional and psychological readiness of the peoples of Europe. The reasons are obvious.

There is simply no common political culture in Europe; no common media, no common sense of humour or satire; and – this is important – no awareness of each other’s politics, so that the European Union as a whole has no common sense of the two things you need for a democracy to work efficiently. You need trust, and you need shame. There is no trust, partly for the obvious reason that people often fail to understand each other’s languages. There is no shame, because it is not clear who you are letting down if you abuse the EU system.

That is why there is such cavalier waste and theft of EU funds: because it is everybody’s money, it is nobody’s money.

Johnson says there is no proper economic case for staying in the EU. The whole project is political, he says.

He goes back to the origins of the EU.

There were two brilliant Frenchmen – a wheeler-dealing civil servant with big American connexions called Jean Monnet, and a French foreign minister called Robert Schuman. They wanted to use instruments of economic integration to make war between France and Germany not just a practical but a psychological impossibility.

It was an exercise in what I believe used to be called behavioural therapy; inducing a change in the underlying attitudes by forcing a change in behaviour. Their inspired idea was to weave a cat’s cradle of supranational legislation that would not only bind the former combatants together, but create a new sensation of European-ness.

As Schuman put it, “Europe will be built through concrete achievements which create a de facto solidarity.” Jean Monnet believed that people would become “in mind European”, and that this primarily functional and regulatory approach would produce a European identity and a European consciousness.

Johnson says EU bad at concluding trade deals

Johnson says the EU has been poor at concluding trade deals.

As for the argument that we need the muscle of EU membership, if we are to do trade deals – well, look, as I say, at the results after 42 years of membership. The EU has done trade deals with the Palestinian authority and San Marino. Bravo. But it has failed to conclude agreements with India, China or even America.

Why? Because negotiating on behalf of the EU is like trying to ride a vast pantomime horse, with 28 people blindly pulling in different directions. For decades deals with America have been blocked by the French film industry, and the current TTIP negotiations are stalled at least partly because Greek feta cheese manufacturers object to the concept of American feta. They may be right, aesthetically, but it should not be delaying us in this country.

Global trade is not carried on by kind permission of people like Peter Mandelson. People and businesses trade with each other, and always will, as long as they have something to buy and sell.

Johnson dismisses claims that being outside the EU would harm the City.

I hear again the arguments from the City of London, and the anxieties that have been expressed. We heard them 15 years ago, when many of the very same Remainers prophesied disaster for the City of London if we failed to join the euro. They said all the banks would flee to Frankfurt. Well, Canary Wharf alone is now far bigger than the Frankfurt financial centre – and has kept growing relentlessly since the crash of 2008.

Johnson says the UK does not need to be in the EU to promote trade and competition.

There are plenty of other parts of the world where the free market and competition has been driving down the cost of mobile roaming charges and cut-price airline tickets – without the need for a vast supranational bureaucracy enforced by a supranational court.

Johnson says single market has not boosted UK growth

Johnson says all three arguments are bogus.

He turns to the first argument.

What the government wants is for us to remain locked into the Single Market law-making regime, and to be exposed to 2500 new EU regulations a year. What we want is for Britain to be like many other countries in having free-trade access to the territory covered by the Single Market – but not to be subject to the vast, growing and politically-driven empire of EU law.

Johnson says when the single market was created, we were told this would promote growth.

Did Britain export more to the rest of the EEC 11, as a result of the Single Market? On the contrary, the rate of growth slowed, as Michael Burrage has shown this year. British exports of goods were actually 22 per cent lower, at the end of the second 20 year period, than if they had continued to grow at the rate of the 20 years pre-1992. And before you say that this might be just a result of Britain’s sluggish performance in the export of manufactured goods, the same failure was seen in the case of the 12 EEC countries themselves.

We were told that goods would start pinging around the EEC as if in some supercharged cyclotron; and on the contrary, the rate of growth flattened again – 14.6 per cent lower than the previous 20 years when there was no single market.

So what was the decisive advantage to Britain, or any other country, of being inside this system, and accepting these thousands of one-size-fits-all regulations? In fact you could argue that many countries were better off being outside, and not subject to the bureaucracy. In the period of existence of this vaunted single market, from 1992 to 2011, there were 27 non-EU countries whose exports of goods to the rest of the EU grew faster than the UK’s; and most embarrassingly of all – there were 21 countries who did better than the UK in exporting services to the other EEC 11.

Johnson is quoting evidence from this Civitas report, Myth and Paradox of the Single Market by Michael Burrage.

Johnson says there are three myths the Leave side need to tackle.

First, that leaving the EU would harm the economy.

Second, the “peace in Europe” argument used by David Cameron this morning.

And, third, the idea that if you leave the EU, you must be anti-European.

Johnson says it is time to tell the EU we need a new partnership with them.

Johnson says EU is 'ratchet hauling us ever further into federal structure'

Johnson says Cameron failed to get what he hoped for in his renegotiation.

He says the EU plans to go ahead with further integration.

The Five Presidents’ report makes it clear that as soon as the UK referendum is out of the way, they will proceed with new structures of political and fiscal integration that this country should have no part in, but which will inevitably involve us, just as we were forced – in spite of promises to the contrary – to take part in the bail-out of Greece. They want to go ahead with new EU rules on company law, and property rights and every aspect of employment law and even taxation – and we will be dragged in.

To call this a reformed EU is an offence against the Trades Descriptions Act, or rather the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive that of course replaced the Trades Descriptions Act in 2008. The EU system is a ratchet hauling us ever further into a federal structure.

Johnson says David Cameron’s Bloomberg speech was “excellent”.

Cameron said the biggest danger to the EU was not from those who advocated change, but from those who resisted change.

Cameron was absolutely right, Johnson says.

Johnson says it is absurd that Britain, a free trade nation, has not been able to secure its own free trade agreement with Australia, New Zealand, China, India or America for the last 42 years.

Johnson says our gross contribution to the EU is £20bn, and our net contribution is £10bn a year.

That money is not being spent wisely, he says.

He says brilliant students from Commonwealth countries are being pushed away because the government is trying to meet its migration targets.

He says he is in favour of immigration. But he is also in favour of control.

It is sad that our powers of economic self-government have become so straitened that the chancellor has go to around his fellow finance ministers asking for permission to cut VAT on tampons.

Johnson sets out the many areas where the EU has power.

It is also in total control of monetary policy for all 19 Eurzone countries.

The EU has its own foreign minister, and its own embassies. And it is trying to develop defence capability.

He says we should stop the “subterfuge” that is concealing the efforts to create a country called Europe.

  • Johnson says EU leaders are engaged in “subterfuge”, trying to conceal their plans to turn EU into a country.

Boris Johnson's speech

Boris Johnson is speaking now.

He says he was told that, as a “liberal cosmopolitan”, he should not be voting to leave the EU. But others like him, like David Owen and Gisela Stuart, feel the same way.

He says he has wanted the EU to reform for a long time. But it never did.

Now David Cameron has offered Britain a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get out. And we would be made not to take the chance to walk into the sunny uplands he says.

He says saying the EU is all about trade is like saying the mafia is just interested in selling olive oil.

And this is from the Sun’s Harry Cole.

Boris Johnson is speaking at the Vote Leave HQ.

They’ve had fun choosing the music to play before he starts. This is from the Telegraph’s Steven Swinford.

Boris Johnson should be delivering his EU speech shortly.

We should have a live feed at the top of this blog once he gets going. There is also a link to a live feed here.

And here are two more tweets picking up on the point about whether David Cameron was sincere when he hinted he might recommend leaving the EU if he did not get what he wanted in his EU renegotation.

From the Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope

From the economist Jonathan Portes

And this is from Mark Urban, Newsnight’s diplomatic editor.

Updated

This is from Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.

The full text of David Cameron’s speech is now on the Number 10 website.

David Miliband says leaving EU would be 'greatest voluntary renunciation of power' by any state in peacetime

David Cameron was introduced by David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, at his speech at the British Museum this morning. In his very short speech Miliband delivered a concentrated version of Cameron’s argument. Here are some key quotes.

  • Miliband said the British public “will not vote for weaker Britain” and that leaving the EU would make Britain weaker.

That is why I say that withdrawal from the EU would be the greatest voluntary renunciation of political power by any country in peacetime history. And that is why the Project Fantasy of a strong Britain outside the EU needs to be exposed. It is just a fantasy to believe that Britain will negotiate trade deals on its own terms, lead on climate change or protect ourselves from instability in the neighborhood outside the EU.

  • He said many of the world’s problems needed more Europe, not less Europe, for them to be solved.

Europe is the way an increasing number of vital British interests are fulfilled in the world today. And where they are unfulfilled, in respect of dealings with Russia or intelligence sharing across Europe or engagement in North Africa, it is not because there is too much Europe but because there is too little.

Britain has a massive interest in a good trade deal with the US. That can only be achieved through the EU.

Britain stands to gain from peace in the Balkans. The anchor of the EU is the biggest source of stability in the Balkans today.

Britain has a huge interest in global emissions reductions. We have in various ways led on that issue. That can only be negotiated through the EU.

  • He said the fact that he and Cameron were on the same side showed how “compelling” their message was.

I am sure it will be easy to poke fun at our unusual and temporary alliance. But actually it is a sobering reflection of what is at issue. There is a centre-left case for Britain’s membership of the EU. There is a centre-right case for Britain’s membership. Together they add up to a compelling national case, and they need to be brought together in a way that is positive, patriotic and effective.

David Miliband (left) and David Cameron at the British Museum this morning.
David Miliband (left) and David Cameron at the British Museum this morning. Photograph: Leon Neal/PA

The Daily Mail has devoted an editorial to David Cameron’s speech, written on the basis of the excerpts that were briefed overnight. The Mail (which, arguably, is somewhat of an authority on the subject) is accusing Cameron of scaremongering. Here’s an excerpt.

In an extraordinary escalation of Project Fear, David Cameron warns today that Europe risks sliding back into war and genocide if Britain dares to leave the EU.

One question: if he honestly believes the dangers are so great, why on Earth did he call the referendum in the first place?

The headline is: “Scaremongering that smacks of desperation.”

It’s the only editorial I’ve seen devoted entirely to the speech.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph, which seems to have been written before he was aware of what David Cameron would be saying in his speech today, Julian Lewis, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence secretary, ridicules the idea that the EU has made war in Europe inconceivable.

In deterring external threats, the EU adds nothing but risk and uncertainty to the exemplary role discharged by Nato; but what about its pompous claim to have made war between its own members “inconceivable”? EU leaders urge Brexit supporters to visit the vast military cemeteries in France and Belgium – as if the dead supported their notion of a single European superstate.

They dishonour the memory of those who fought for the rights of the British people, and of the captive peoples of occupied Europe, to govern themselves within free, constitutional and democratic countries. There is no risk of western European states going to war with each other, as long as they remain free, democratic and constitutional. Constitutional democracies do not attack one another. Wars break out between dictatorships and other dictatorships, or between dictatorships and democracies, as in 1939.

By trying to build a supranational state in the absence of democratic structures or a popular mandate, the EU is sowing the seeds of precisely the sort of conflicts it claims to have abolished.

And here is the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, a leading Brexit campaigner, on Cameron’s speech.

Here is Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, on David Cameron’s speech.

Farage is referring to the protests that took place in Athens as the parliament approved tax rises and pension cuts.

Updated

Defence minister Penny Mordaunt says staying in EU would undermine security

The Today programme also interviewed Penny Mordaunt, the pro-Brexit defence minister, about David Cameron’s speech. Here are the main points she made.

  • Mordaunt said staying in the EU would undermine security, not enhance it.

The prime minister today is trying to tap into a vision, which I think we all share, of nations living in peace, looking West, secure and prosperous. What is being debated though is that the EU is a necessary to that, and I would actually argue that its current trajectory is absolutely counter to that.

  • She said that the EU was not contributing to security because it was enforcing policies that led to “fragmentation”.

Look, the reason why the EU is not delivering either on security or economic prosperity is because it is not doing what its nation states need in order to thrive. It is causing tremendous fragmentation, the rise of far-right politics – all the things that the Prime Minister is warning us could happen if we leave are here now today.

  • She said Brexit could lead to the EU making reforms to the way it works that it needs to make.

As well as it being a better deal for the UK, [Bexit] will give the remaining EU states a catalyst for reform. You could see to the tail end of the prime minister’s negotiations other nations saying ‘do you know actually that sounds very sensible, we ought to have some of that too’. We have tried absolutely everything to get the EU to reform from within, this is our last chance I think to get it to start to get back to its democratic principles to actually start doing what its nation states need, both in terms of security and economic prosperity.

  • She said world leaders were not supporting Brexit because they did not want to offend the prime minister. Asked why they were not speaking out in favour of Britain leaving the EU, she replied:

Look, no head of state or prime minister or president is going to want to annoy our prime minister. There is a big long list of admirals, generals, former head of the CIA, former [head] of MI6, who think that we will be safer if we leave the EU.

Penny Mordaunt
Penny Mordaunt Photograph: Ian Nicholson/PA

Hammond seeks to clarify Cameron's Brexit war warning

While David Cameron was delivering his speech, Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, was on the Today programme talking about it. Here are the main points.

  • Hammond said that Cameron was not suggesting in his speech that leaving the EU would lead to wars between Western countries. What he was saying was that, without Britain as a member, it would be less effective as a force for peace, he said.

The European Union will be weaker without Britain inside it, and the mechanism that ensure the peace and stability on the continent will be consummately weaker.

We run the risks of tensions rising in parts of Europe which perhaps do not have the deep and enduring democratic roots that we and our immediate neighbours have and in the areas just outside the European Union, the Balkans for example, closely associated with the EU and would-be member states, where the EU has significant influence.

Anything that weakens the EU weakens the forces of stability in those areas. That would be bad for Britain.

  • He distanced himself from the way some newspapers have reported the speech. At least three have splashed with headlines saying Cameron is warning Brexit could lead to war.

Asked about these headlines, Hammond said:

I don’t write the headlines in some of our newspapers. What I’m saying is that the European Union is an important contributor to the stability and the peace that we enjoy in Europe. That is in Britain’s interest and history tells us that Britain is a European power, it’s a global power as well, but it’s a European power and it cannot turn its back on what’s going on in Europe. We have to be concerned about what’s going on in Europe.

  • He said that since becoming foreign secretary he had become more aware of the value of being in the EU. Hammond used to be seen as one of the cabinet’s strongest Eurosceptics. But he said he had now visited 71 countries.

With my hand on my heart I can tell you, that not in any one of those countries, has anyone told me Britain would be a more influential power, a more important partner if we are outside the European Union, quite the contrary.

  • He defended the decision to have a referendum even though Cameron is now saying leaving would be very risky. Having a referendum was “right for democracy” because the EU had changed so much, he said.

It’s not acceptable in a democracy to say this is an inappropriate question to put to the people.

Philip Hammond
Philip Hammond Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

Comments were left off earlier by mistake. I’m sorry about that. They are on now.

Q: Aren’t you scaremongering? Won’t people disbelieve you?

Cameron says things like conflict in the Ukraine are facts.

He says peace in Europe is not just down to the EU. Nato has played a vital role too. But it is remarkable that countries that fought each other in the past now cooperate in the EU.

He says the security argument is one of three pillars to his case.

The first pillar is one that we are better off. Cameron says his side is comprehensively winning that case.

The other pillars are about Britain being stronger and safer, he says.

The Q&A is now over. I will post a summary and reaction soon.

Q: [From ITV’s Robert Peston] You are making a very serious charge against cabinet colleagues, that they would willingly expose the UK to a greater risk of war and terrorism. Can you work with these people in cabinet.

Cameron says he is working with them right now.

On security, he says he is drawing on his experiences as prime minister. Ten years ago he might have said the case for staying in the EU was primarily economic. But now he realises that it make a real different on security, in relation to matters like sharing information about DNA.

Q: [From the Dutch ambassador] Your views on EU membership are the same as the Dutch government’s. Boris Johnson is probably sharpening his bicycle spokes to stick them in your arguments. How will you facilitate a more informed debate. I often hear cabbies saying you are spending 10% of GDP on EU membership, when it is 0.5%. And what are your priorities for your presidency of the EU.

Cameron says if we left the EU, the hit to tax revenues would be many times greater than the amount we would gain from paying less in.

And yesterday something important happened, he says. The leader of the Leave campaign (Michael Gove) proposed leaving the single market. That is “reckless and irresponsible”, he says.

He says the better off and big firms would probably be okay. But ordinary people would suffer.

He says the UK presidency will focusing on extending the single market, and on fighting extremism and terrorism.

Cameron's Q&A

Cameron is now taking questions.

Q: [From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg] If leaving the EU could lead to war, why did you offer a referendum in the first place? Isn’t this just alarmist?

Cameron says it is right to have a referendum because it would be wrong to try to hold the UK in the EU against its will.

But he has always believed Britain would be better off in a reformed EU, he says.

He says during the renegotiation he was often criticised for not saying explicitly he would back leaving the EU.

So next month we will make our choice, he says.

The EU benefits from having Britain in it.

He says Britain always wanted two things from the EU: the creation of a single market, and expansion to take in the former Communist countries of eastern Europe.

We got both those things, he says.

He says if we were not in the EU, it would still exist. We would still have to deal with it.

Now we are in it, but outside the euro and outside the Schengen agreement.

That is the best of both worlds. It is what the Chinese call a “win, win”. The Americans would call it a “slam dunk”.

So let’s not walk away from the EU, he says.

He says we should remain, fight our corner, and play our role as a big power in Europe.

And that’s it. The speech is over.

Cameron says the UK’s friends and biggest trading partners around the world want Britain to stay in the EU.

Cameron says leaving the EU could also diminish the UK by leading to its break-up, with Scotland going independent.

Cameron says he has three examples of how being in the EU has amplified UK power.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it looked as if the EU might adopt a feeble response. But Cameron pushed for tough sanctions.

He says Britain encourage the EU to play a lead role in negotiating the deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programme.

And he says he also pushed for the EU to produce a robust response to the Ebola crisis.

If we were outside the EU, we would not have the power to influence EU decisions like this. It would amount to a diminution of the UK’s power, as a result of a decision taken by the UK itself.

Cameron says our EU membership magnifies our national power.

In the last 40 years our global power has increased.

Before we joined the EU, our global power was diminishing. We were retreating from east of Suez, he says.

He says Britain is a proud nation, not one “shackled” by membership of the EU.

Cameron says being part of the EU helps the UK tackle threats such as the one posed by Islamic State. Quoting the historian Niall Ferguson, he says it takes a network to tackle a network.

Cameron says he accepts that, if we left the EU, we would still be able to cooperate with other EU countries on security. But he says this process would be more complex, and access to vital information would be slower.

He says Iceland began negotiating an agreement covering access to security information with the EU in 2001, and it has still not been concluded.

Cameron says it would be 'rash' to think Europe could never go to war again

Cameron is now going through these four arguments in more detail.

He says Britain has been involved in European affairs for 2,000 years.

From Caesar’s legions to the wars of the Spanish succession, from the Napoleonic wars to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Proud as we are of our global reach and our global connections, Britain has also always been a European power, and we always will be.

He says Britain can be a European power and a global power.

He recalls Britain’s role in world war two. He is reminded of this when he sits in the cabinet room, he says.

The moments of which we are rightly most proud in our national story include pivotal moments in European history. Blenheim. Trafalgar. Waterloo.

Our country’s heroism in the Great War.

And most of all our lone stand in 1940, when Britain stood as a bulwark against a new dark age of tyranny and oppression.

But he says Britain was not alone in 1940 through choice.

It wasn’t through choice that we were alone. Churchill never wanted that. Indeed he spent the months before the Battle of Britain began trying to keep our French allies in the war, and then after France fell, he spent the next 18 months persuading the United States to come to our aid.

And in the post-war period he argued passionately for Western Europe to come together, to promote free trade, and to build institutions which would endure so that our continent would never again see such bloodshed.

Cameron says the silent headstones in Commonwealth war graves highlight the consequences of war in Europe.

Whenever we turn our back on Europe, sooner or later we come to regret it. We have always had to go back in, and always at much higher cost.

The serried rows of white headstones in lovingly-tended Commonwealth war cemeteries stand as silent testament to the price this country has paid to help restore peace and order in Europe.

Pointing to Russian aggression in Georgia and Ukraine, he goes on:

Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash as to make that assumption.

Cameron says it is only 20 years since there was war in the Balkans.

And the EU played a role in bringing peace to the region, he says.

The European Union has helped reconcile countries which were at each others’ throats for decades.

Britain has a fundamental national interest in maintaining common purpose in Europe to avoid future conflict between European countries.

And that requires British leadership, and for Britain to remain a member.

The truth is this: what happens in our neighbourhood matters to Britain.

That was true in 1914, in 1940 and in 1989. Or, you could add 1588, 1704 and 1815.

It is just as true in 2016.

Either we influence Europe, or it influences us.

And if things go wrong in Europe, let’s not pretend we can be immune from the consequences.

Cameron says there are four reasons why staying in the EU makes us safer.

First, what happens in Europe affects us, whether we are in the EU or not.

Second, there is strength in numbers. We are safer acting with EU partners.

Third, the complexity of things like cyber-crime means that we need to cooperate with other countries.

And, fourth, being in the EU amplifies our power.

Cameron says this is a great country, not just in the history books, but now.

We are the fifth largest economy in the world, and Europe’s foremost military power.

London is a world city, our language is spoken around the world, and our flag is a global icon. Our head of state is one of the most admired people in the world.

He says we are special, unique. We have the character of an island nation which has not been invaded for almost 1,000 years.

We are practical, and suspicious of ideology. We are sceptical of grand schemes and grand promises, he says.

Cameron says his main focus today will not be on the economic case for staying in the EU, strong as it is, but on the arguments about security.

He says he wants to set out the “big, bold patriotic case” for staying in the EU.

Membership of the EU is one of the tools that helps Britain guarantee security, he says.

Cameron says the Leave campaign have noticed that some countries in Europe outside the EU have free trade agreements with the EU. They call this the European free trade zone.

But no such thing exists, he says.

There is just a patchwork of different arrangements.

Some Leave campaigners want the UK to continue to have full access to the single market. But to do so would involve having to abide by EU regulations.

Others, including yesterday the Vote Leave campaign (Cameron is referring to Michael Gove in his Andrew Marr interview) say the UK should definitely leave the EU.

But that would be reckless, he says.

Cameron says an OECD survey has shown that Britain has the best regulatory regime, second only to the Netherlands, which is also in the EU.

That disproves the claim that EU membership leads to the UK being tied up in too much red tape, he says.

David Cameron's speech

David Cameron is speaking now.

He says people will vote on 23 June calmly, as they always have in British elections.

But this vote is different, he says. People are taking a decision that will last for a lifetime.

He says he respects the views of those who want to leave the EU.

But he thinks Britain is safer, stronger and better off it is stays in.

David Cameron
David Cameron Photograph: Sky News

David Cameron is speaking at the British Museum. David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, is introducing him.

If you’re not interested in the EU referendum, it’s probably best to stay away from this blog for the next seven weeks. With the local, mayoral and devolved elections over, EU referendum campaigning is intenstifying, starting this morning with a speech from David Cameron.

Here’s the Guardian’s preview story.

The key line in the speech will be a suggestion that leaving the EU could increase the chances of another war in Europe. Cameron will say:

Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash as to make that assumption.

Cameron is due to start speaking now, at 8am.

Later Boris Johnson will give a speech for Vote Leave at 11am.

I will be focusing mostly on the two speeches but, as usual, I will also be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary after at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m@AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.

If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.

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