We’re now closing this live blog. Thanks for reading, and for the many, many comments. We’re back tomorrow from 7am UK time for full, live coverage until we finally know what’s happened.
Tomorrow is a big day. If you’re in the UK and eligible to vote in the referendum, please do. It’s a decision which could affect the country for decades to come. And it’s close. Unlike a general election, where the fate of the nation hangs on a few marginal constituencies, here everyone has a chance to nudge things their way. So whatever you believe, do take part.
Earlier my colleague Frances Perraudin was at a tribute to Jo Cox in her home town:
While tributes were paid to Jo Cox in Westminster, around 2,000 people gathered in the market square in Batley to celebrate the life of their MP. Many, including the handful of police at the event, wore white roses – the symbol of Yorkshire – and brought bunches of flowers to contribute to the large pile outside the town hall.
Watched by her parents Gordon and Jean, Jo Cox’s sister, Kim Leadbeater, thanked all those who had sent their love and sympathy to the family over the last few days. “Knowing that Jo touched the lives of so many people has genuinely made a huge difference to us,” she told the crowd, many of whom were in tears.
“From Batley to Burma and the Spen Valley to Syria, Jo’s life was centred around helping people and standing up for the causes she felt so passionately about,” she said.
“My sister would want her murder to mobilise people, to get on with things, to try to make a positive difference in whatever way we can, to come together and unite against hate and division and to fight instead for inclusion, love and unity. In Jo’s honour, and on behalf of her grieving family, I urge you to please do so.”
Ebrahim Bulsari, 43, who came to pay tribute with his wife and two small children, said that Jo Cox had achieved a huge amount for the local community in the short time she was an MP. “I voted for her and she even took a picture with [my little girl],” he says. “It’s a sad loss. She did so much for people in the community regardless of colour or creed. She was there for everyone.”
Martin Jones, 65, a retired special needs teacher and a member of Kirklees United Against Fascism group said that on one level he wasn’t surprised by Jo Cox’s murder because of what he called a “persistent and low-key” problem with fascism in the area.
“It’s important that we all gather today because of what Jo Cox said: ‘We have more in common than that which divides us’. And fascism wants to divide and rule by scapegoating migrants and refugees and Jo Cox stood up for those people.”
Sophie, 44, who didn’t want to give her last name, said she lived around the corner from Cox’s parents and that the murder hadn’t changed her view of the area. “It’s a nice place. There are good and bad people everywhere.” She is sure that the MP’s death will effect the way people in the constituency will vote in the EU referendum. “Everyone who was sitting on the fence will probably decide to vote to stay in,” she says.
Here’s an extract from David Cameron’s speech earlier.
My colleague Amber Jamieson was outside the UN building in New York to see yet another tribute event for Jo Cox.
Around 200 people gathered at the United Nations in New York to hear top diplomats, politicians and colleagues pay tribute to Jo Cox. White roses were pinned to the lapels of those who spoke, with a large display of white hydrangeas and roses on the stage at the James P Grant Plaza, part of the UN complex in Manhattan. Many who gathered were friends and colleagues from Cox’s NGO and international humanitarian work.
“I couldn’t help but think that one day she would have made a wonderful leader here at the United Nations,” said Matthew Rycroft, the British ambassador to the United Nations, who spoke of her humanitarian work in places such as Darfur and Syria and her ability to use charm and steely determination to get money and change for issues she believed in.
Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the UN, read a statement from President Obama paying tribute to Cox’s life, noting that the young activist come over to the USA to volunteer on his 2008 campaign. “She gave a time and passion to a country that was not her own because she believed in an idea that transcends borders and culture: the power of people to bring about change from the grassroots up,” said Obama.
Justin Forsyth, the deputy director of Unicef and a long-time friend and former colleague of Cox’s at Oxfam, led the proceedings. A performer from Broadway’s Les Miserables, Devin Iiaw, sang Empty Chairs, Empty Tables, apparently a favourite of Cox and her husband Brendan’s. Stephen O’Brien, former UK MP and the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, choked up as he paid tribute to Cox, along with a variety of her former colleagues at Oxfam and friends who spoke.
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee and former foreign secretary, spoke of how Cox’s death reminded him of Anna Lindh, the Swedish politician killed in 2005, and quoted words said by then EU Commissioner Chris Patten about Lindh’s death: “The most beautiful symphonies are sometimes those which are unfinished”
And even in Manhattan, 3350 miles away from her hometown in Yorkshire, there was another young politically active woman from Batley and and Spen. Muna Abbas, a political advisor from the House of Lords, spoke about her mentor and inspiration. “She taught us that the world was our oyster but that Batley was always home,’ said Abbas, telling of how until last week the most famous resident of Batley was scientist Joseph Priestley, and that a statue of him mere metres from where Cox was killed has turned into a floral tribute for her. “It is is as if he has passed on the baton to her as the new hero of our hometown,” said Abbas.
The UN choir finished the event with a performance of Amazing Grace.
It has just been announced that Nigel Farage has pulled out of tonight’s debate on Channel 4, citing family reasons.
Jeremy Paxman is to present the final live European Referendum debate, a 90 minute discussion including 150 handpicked guests, consisting of 50 remain, 50 leave and 50 undecided, starting at 9pm.
Many of the guests are politicians, including Alan Johnson and Chuka Umunna, who will be joined by a wide-ranging panel including TV presenters Billie JD Porter and Ulrika Jonsson, and actor Leslie Ash.
Updated
What are we to make of the final remain rally outside Birmingham university? A few elements stand out.
The first is that while he was the star attraction, David Cameron was arguably the least interesting speaker. It was not because he was poor – he was passionate and engaged. But the message was very familiar, almost entirely about the perceived threats to the economy and to security of Brexit. These are the issues on which Cameron believes remain will win, if they do.
Also on show was the breadth of the remain camp. Yes, leave have a few Labour MPs among their ranks. But this featured former or current leaders of four parties – the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens – as well as trade unionists. It’s a broad church. And yet this weight of political opinion could still lose tomorrow.
It also showed off Tim Farron to good effect. As leaders of a much-shrunk party he is a far less well-known figure than Nick Clegg. But he made a good case.
The standout turn was, however, Gordon Brown, prowling the stage in righteous fury, turning to face each side of the crowd in turn. It’s probably too late to sway many voters, but it was a passionate, engaged, positive case for stating in. Here’s they key passage, when he referred to the slightly tawdry debate so far:
This is not the Britain I know. This is not the Britain I love. The Britain I know is better than the Britain of these debates, of insults, of posters.
The Britain I know is better as it deals with some of the great challenges of our time. The Britain I know is better than the exaggerations and overexaggerations that we have seen.
The Britain I know is the Britain of Jo Cox. The Britain where people are tolerant, and not prejudiced, and where people hate hate.
Updated
Here’s a video of Brendan Cox making his emotional address at his late wife’s memorial service.
My colleague Jessica Elgot was at the Trafalgar Square memorial of Jo Cox. She sends this:
Jo Cox’s murder has inspired far more love than the hatred that killed, her husband has said in an deeply emotional tribute at a celebration of the murdered MPs life on what would have been her 42nd birthday.
It included tributes from Malala, Bono, Bill Nighy and Lily Allen, as well as Syria’s humanitarian rescuers, the white helmets.
In Trafalgar Square, more than 10,000 people gathered in the humidity, played in by the couple’s favourite band, Diddley Dee, who played at their wedding and had become close friends of the pair.
Each touch at the event, named More In Common after the words of Cox’s maiden speech, was intensely personal, a tribute song recorded by Bono who admired Cox’s work with Oxfam, a performance by Lily Allen of Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know, a song the family sang at the holiday cottage on the river Wye.
Children from her five-year-old son’s school sang civil rights anthem If I Had A Hammer.
Brendan Cox, his voice catching, called his wife’s death “an act of terror designed to advance hatred against others.”
“What a beautiful irony it is that an act designed to advance hatred has instead generated such an outpouring of love,” he said.
Among the crowd were the close knit community of Hermitage Moorings, where Cox lived on the family house boat. Wearing white roses, the goup carried a six-foot banner with a picture of their friend, designed in the style of trade union banners.
Maria Carey, the couple’s next door neighbour, designed the banner in a race against time to get it ready for Wednesday, sketching the design and begging firms to print over the weekend.
“She was the most wonderful person, always positive, it has been a privilege to know her personally and inspiring to see her professionally,” Carey said.
Here’s a better extract from Gordon Brown’s passionate speech earlier.
Cameron ends, his voice sounding hoarse:
Let’s go out there and vote remain tomorrow, Thursday. Let’s go for it!
And with that, the rally is finished.
Cameron tells voters to ignore untruths from the leave side on Turkey joining the EU imminently, an EU army and the fabled sum of £350m a week going to the bloc. “Don’t go and vote on the basis of things which are not true,” he says.
Cameron says the one word he would use to sum up his argument is, “together”. Cameron cites Churchill, saying he did not want to fight alone in Europe.
Cameron is going hard on the economy. His final message to undecided voters is: “Put jobs first, put the economy first.”
This is a greatest hits run through by Cameron. He makes a previously-heard analogy about not driving a car which a mechanic says is unsafe.
He lists the need to cooperate over terrorism, climate change, Russia and Islamic State. “The idea that you take back control by leaving is an illusion,” Cameron warns. There’s lot of mentions of terrorism, crime and safety.
Cameron is in his shirtsleeves, roaming the stage and waving his hands. “Wasn’t that a belter of a speech from Gordon Brown?” he asks, also praising Tim Farron.
He goes straight onto the need for a strong economy, saying it “is everything”. He is again scathing about Michael Gove’s comparison of experts warning against Brexit to Nazis. “That is the extent to which they have lost it,” Cameron says.
We’ve not heard from him yet, but David Cameron is here. He’s now being introduced.
Next we have the current Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron. This is a very big, very cross-party event. He says he will not have the definition of patriotism defined by “little Englanders”. This is another passionate speech. “I will vote remain tomorrow because I am a patriot,” he says.
In the meantime, here’s a final average of polls for tomorrow’s vote – and it’s tied at 45% each, with the crucial 10% still undecided. It’s up to them now.
#EUref polling average:
— NCP EU Referendum (@NCPoliticsEU) June 22, 2016
REMAIN 45 (+2)
LEAVE 45 (=)
DK 10 (-2)https://t.co/j41CRKjgoU #Brexit #EUreferendum pic.twitter.com/zYFG8lDMOL
Updated
Lucas introduces the former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown, who details what the EU does for security, based on his very wide foreign policy experience.
As we await David Cameron, another detail from the Jo Cox memorial in London. According to people there, as it took place a small plane carrying a banner urging a leave vote flew over a few times, prompting some displeasure. The official Vote Leave campaign has denied it organised this.
@stellacreasy @voteleave what absolute shits
— Nicholas Soames (@nsoamesmp) June 22, 2016
Updated
Now we have Caroline Lucas, the Green MP. David Cameron is, presumably, sitting on the bus looking forwards to next week, when he no longer has to share platforms with people from the Labour, Green and trade union worlds.
If you missed Gordon Brown speaking live, here’s a video snippet.
A better shot of Brown speaking.
Brown is finished, and stalks straight off the stage like a slightly angry bear. “Gordon Brown,” says Tristram Hunt, in awe, as the small-ish crowd – all seemingly hand-picked, as tends to happen at such events – cheers wildly.
Now speaking is Cathy Warwick, who heads the Royal College of Midwives, which is officially pro-remain. She’s followed by former TUC head Brendan Barber.
Updated
Brown is striding about, turning to face all the people around him, speaking without notes and passionately. He’s also now covered the benefits of security, the environment and defence of staying within the EU.
He talks about 1,000 years of European conflict ended by the EU, and of a new era of human rights. “Now there is no war, Europe is at peace,” he positively bellows. This is stirring stuff, the type of very positive pro-EU speech some have argued the campaign has lacked so far.
Brown is seemingly not a fan of the campaign so far:
This is not the Britain I know, the Britain I love. The Britain I know is better than these debates, these insults, these posters.
He wants a more positive Britain, one exemplified by Jo Cox.
Next we have Gordon Brown. He also pays tribute to Jo Cox, and then talks at length about the economic and trade case for remaining in the EU. “If you want jobs to remain, vote remain. If you want industries to remain, vote remain,” he says.
Tristram Hunt, the Stoke-on-Trent Labour MP, has emerged from the bus to introduce the first of the speakers. First we have Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader. She begins by paying tribute to Jo Cox.
Tomorrow, she tells the crowd, you will make “the biggest political decision of your life, one that is irrevocable”.
A giant union flag bus has pulled up outside Birmingham university. If it’s not David Cameron inside then it’s a very big coincidence. We should have some words from the prime minister soon.
As we still await David Cameron – the live video feed is currently showing footage of officials seemingly shrugging about what is going on – here’s something which might sway the odd person towards remain – a suggestion from the venerable Foreign Policy journal that Brexit could jeopardise the making of the Game of Thrones TV show in Northern Ireland.
Ione Wells was also at the Trafalgar Square memorial and talked to people as to why they attended:
Caesar and Antonio are visiting the UK from Spain on holiday. Caesar (left) said they were devastated to hear of this “great tragedy”. They are here to show their belief in “freedom and respect for everyone”.
Peter Bruggen said he was feeling “a great deal of sadness at this assassination” and also because he wishes to express his views on unity and the referendum.
“I was living in Strasbourg aged 15 to learn French - living with a family. They took me to the cinema, and I saw early screenings of Churchill in meetings about unions. I was also taken to the opera and there, by chance, I sat right next to Robert Schuman - the prime minister of France at the time. Now, I don’t believe in these things but it felt like a message. I felt a closeness, a union, and have never had a doubt since that union was the right thing.”
Updated
We have a final pre-voting poll and... well, if anyone says they can predict tomorrow’s result with much confidence they’re lying.
Too close to call in final #EUref poll: Leave 45% Remain 44%. Everything rests on 9% still undecided. [sample:3,000] https://t.co/BXhLPZjNAa
— Opinium Research (@OpiniumResearch) June 22, 2016
This is Peter Walker taking over for a final couple of hours of the pre-referendum day live blog. As you’ll see from the updated video feed above, we’re due any moment to see David Cameron making a final appeal for the remain campaign, outside Birmingham university. We’re also promised a mystery special guest.
Updated
Frostrup ends the Trafalgar Square event by urging the audience not to let this be just one day. Let’s take the spirit of unity and roll it out, she says.
Back in Trafalgar Square Frostrup says Jo loved musicals. She particularly loved Les Miserables, and some of the cast are on state singing her favourite song, Do you hear the people sing?
About 100 people including the Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray gathered on Portobello beach, Edinburgh, with candles marking out “more in common” pressed into the sand.
They heard Jo Cox’s friend, Oxfam colleague and former bandmate Kim Wallace say Jo and Brendan Cox loved climbing in Scotland: they had summited 98 of the country’s 282 Munros, hills over 3,000 feet (914m) high, and were planning their 100th this summer.
“Jo was fearless,” Wallace said, choking back tears. “Jo was killed by hatred and if that happened to anyone else, Jo would not have been silent. She would’ve called it for what it was. I encourage you all to love the world like Jo did.”
For #JoCoxMP about 100 people gathered on #Portobello beach, Edinburgh, candles spelling out in sand #MoreInCommon pic.twitter.com/xotIBwHCq1
— Severin Carrell (@severincarrell) June 22, 2016
The speaker in Trafalgar Square asks everyone in the crowd to hold hands with the people beside them and pledge to ‘love like Jo’. It is very un-British, the speaker says, “but Jo would have loved it.”
Police say around 2,000 people have turned out in Batley's market square to pay tribute to MP Jo Cox. pic.twitter.com/yAqpjexUpw
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) June 22, 2016
Some of Jo’s friends are now addressing the crowd in Trafalgar Square.
Malala Yousafza, who was shot as a schoolgirl for defying a Taliban ban on girls attending school and who subsequently won the Nobel Peace Prize, is speaking now.
She says she knows from her own life how powerful it is when a family is lifted up in prayer.
She says the idea that we have more in common than what separates us was not just a line in a speech for Cox. It was a principle that she lived her life by.
She says Cox will not be remembered for the way she died. She will be remembered for the way she lived. We will live like Jo because we will love like Jo, she says.
A choir from the school attended by Jo’s son Cuillin is singing If I had a hammer.
There is a tribute from the White Helmets, volunteer search and rescue workers in Syria.
Bill Nighy reads an extract from a speech by Robert Kennedy.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in isolated villages and city slums in dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
The actress Gillian Anderson is reading a poem, I will stand for love.
To celebrate Jo Cox. "I shall stand for love, because we need more light." #VoteRemain #MoreInCommon @dorothyoger pic.twitter.com/6PtBQC462k
— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) June 22, 2016
Updated
A video tribute from Bono is now being played. Bono says Jo Cox had all the patience in the world for people who needed help.
Jo’s sister Kim Leadbeater is speaking from Batley. Her speech is being broadcast at the event at Trafalgar Square.
She says people asked if she was worried about speaking at such a big event. But there are much harder things in life than talking about someone you love, she says.
She says the family has been truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of support they have received. Knowing that she touched the lives of so many people has made a huge difference, she says.
She says Jo devoted her life to helping others. She did not always know or understand the causes Jo worked on. But there was a pattern: principles of justice, equality, tolerance, acceptance, peace and understanding. These can be applied globally, nationally or locally, she says.
She says she does not understand why Jo was killed.
But she knows that Jo would have wanted people to unite against division.
Big round of applause in Batley when Brendan Cox speaks of his wife's opposition to extremism of all kinds.
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) June 22, 2016
Brendan Cox, Jo’s husband, is speaking now.
He says that he wishes he was not here, and that he could be with her.
Today is her birthday. She should have been in her constituency today. She would have been campaigning for people to stay in the EU because she thought that was so important. He says she was worried about the forces the EU referendum would unleash.
But he says he does not want to talk about that today. He wants to talk about Jo. There are things about her people will not know from reading about her. She was not 5ft. She was at least 5ft 1, or 5ft 2 on a good day.
She was impractical, and once went on a cycling holiday but forgot her bike.
Above all, she was a mum. She was the best mum any child could wish for. And they wish to have her back in their lives.
He says he and his children have spoken every day about what they miss. They try to think, not what they are losing, but how lucky they were to have her in their lives.
He says one reason there has been so much support following her death is that she is seen to symbolise something under threat: tolerance.
He says her killing was political. It was designed to generate hatred. But what a beautiful irony it is that her death has instead prompted an outpouring of love. Jo lived for her beliefs, and died for them, and for the rest of our lives we will honour them, he says.
"Jo's killing was an act of terror designed to advance hatred against others. ...it has advanced an outpouring of love," Brendan Cox
— Alan Travis (@alantravis40) June 22, 2016
Updated
Frostrup says music was important to Jo. One of her favourite songs was Somewhere Only We Know, which the family used to sing as they left their cottage in Wales.
She says when Lily Allen heard about this, she offered to sing it today. She is singing now.
Mariella Frostrup, the broadcaster who was a friend of Jo Cox’s and who campaigned with her on various issues, is hosting the event.
She says she and Cox campaigned together for gender equality, the education of girls and the alleviation of poverty.
She says today would have been Cox’s 42nd birthday. They are honouring her as an activist and a humanitarian.
Jo believed that people achieved more together, Frostrup she says.
Representatives from various faith groups, and from the Humanist Association, are laying 42 white roses to commemorate Cox.
Frostrup says today is also the birthday of Bernard Carter-Kenny, the pensioner who was seriously injured trying to save Cox. Frostrup sends her best wishes for his recovery.
Here is the scene from Batley, in Jo Cox’s constituency, where another More In Commons event is taking place.
People waiting to sign the book of condolences at the Jo Cox memorial in Batley town square. pic.twitter.com/dV8aKh3R1L
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) June 22, 2016
More In Common event in memory of Jo Cox
Here is the scene from the More In Common event in Trafalgar Square in memory of Jo Cox.
The band playing is Diddley Dee, a band that Jo loved and that played at her wedding.
Later there will be a film tribute to Jo, speeches from her husband Brendan, her sister Kim Leadbeater and Malala, the Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winners, as well as video messages and music.
We will be covering the proceedings in detail.
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Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, has launched a vicious attack on leading figures campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, claiming that they want to privatise the NHS, inflict taxes that will hurt the poor and weaken workers’ rights.
The Labour politician has hit out at Conservative figures, including Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith, as well as Ukip’s Nigel Farage, warning that British politics will shift quickly to the right if they win the referendum.
“Why should anyone believe them when they claim they want to put people in control? Their track record tells us that their mission is nothing less than Thatcherism on steroids,” he wrote in the Guardian, arguing that their track record in politics was not to help the poor.
Updated
Juncker says UK will not get better deal if it votes to leave
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commision, has told British voters there will be no re-opening of talks on Britain’s place in the EU, in the event of a vote to leave.
Out means out. British policymakers and British voters have to know that there will be no kind of renegotiation.
Juncker said there would be no re-opening of the British “special status” agreement negotiated with David Cameron in February. Under the deal, the prime minister got an exemption from the EU goal of “ever closer union”, the right to restrict welfare rights of EU workers in Britain and safeguards for countries outside the eurozone, vis-a-vis the larger single-currency bloc.
We have concluded a deal with the prime minister. He got the maximum he could receive and we gave the maximum we could give. So there will be no renegotiation.
If Britain votes to leave the EU on Thursday, the February deal will immediately become null and void, thanks to a self-destruct clause written into the text.
Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA
Updated
The day before her murder, Jo Cox’s family had spent a happy day out on the river, her husband Brendan and their two small children flying the flag for ‘IN’ as they joined the remain flotilla to counter Nigel Farage’s Brexit boat on the Thames. The kids had enjoyed it so much, Brendan Cox tweeted that afternoon, they had asked to do it again the next day.
On Cox’s 42nd birthday, less than a week since her killing outside her constituency surgery, her family and friends stepped aboard a barge moored by the family houseboat, to make their way up the river to Westminster again, to celebrate the life of the MP, human rights activist, wife and mother.
Her neighbours at Hermitage Moorings had carpeted one community dinghy with 1,000 roses, a floating memorial named ‘Yorkshire Rose’ after the MP for Batley and Spen.
At the gates of the East London moorings where the family houseboat docked, a table was filled with bouquets and potted roses left by mourners and on the riverside walkway facing the boats, there were drops of white candle wax and burnt-out memorial candles.
From the Hermitage moorings with its views from Tower Bridge and City Hall, the barge with Brendan Cox and his two children, towing the floating memorial, set off up the river.
Before disembarking at Westminister Pier just as Big Ben struck 3pm, the dinghy was tied to a mooring post outside the Palace of Westminster; where it will stay for a week.
The main event will follow in Trafalgar Square, which coincides with dozens more around the world, named More In Common, after the MP’s maiden speech.
The couple’s favourite band will play, with tributes from Malala, U2 and a guard of honour decked in suffragette colours of purple, green and white.
Updated
.@jeremycorbyn now riffing on his favourite topics: country-by-country reporting; financial transactions tax; posted workers' directive.
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) June 22, 2016
Corbyn is repeating many of the points he raised in his EU speech yesterday.
Corbyn is talking about the need for countries to work together to tackle problems with an international dimension, like pollution.
“The sea is a common denominator for all of us,” he says.
This is from my colleague Heather Stewart.
Noticeably upbeat tone at last Labour In event - less transactional, more about spirit of openness and cooperation the EU represents.
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) June 22, 2016
Jeremy Corbyn is speaking now.
He thanks Khan for winning the London mayor election against the most disgusting campaign he had ever seen in an election.
Labour does not believe in the status quo, he says. It wants to reform Europe to make it work better for people.
He says people should vote to remain in the EU for jobs, for rights at work and for the NHS.
Sadiq Khan is speaking now. He says Labour faces the fight of its life between now and 10pm tomorrow. He says staying in the EU is the best way to be true to British values and Labour values.
Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, says the risks of leaving the EU outweigh any potential benefits. And these are risks we do not have to take, she says.
She says you do not have to love Europe to vote for it.
Tomorrow is not the day for a protest vote, she says.
Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan, Carwyn Jones and Kezia Dugdale are all on the stage together.
And Jones, the Welsh first minister, is speaking first.
He says his job involves promoting employment. Employers want to come to Wales because it is in the single market, he says.
He says he wants Britain to be a tolerant country.
Labour rally for Remain
Alan Johnson, the chair of Labour In for Britain, is speaking at the Labour rally now. It is going to feature Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader, Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish leader, Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister, and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.
Johnson says an Italian friend told him recently that for Britain to stand alone in 1940 when it was surrounded by enemies was heroic. But for it to stand alone now, when it is surrounded by friends, would be absurd.
Updated
Sir John Major's speech - Summary
Sir John Major’s speech this morning, from the event with David Cameron, Harriet Harman and Marvin Rees, the Labour mayor of Bristol, was very good. I’ve already quoted one passage from it, but here is a summary of all the key points.
- Sir John Major accused Boris Johnson and Michael Gove of being “gravediggers of our prosperity”. And he said that if the UK left the EU, Britain would be “shrunk down to a little England.”
Now, if our nation does vote to leave tomorrow, we must respect their decision. But if they vote to leave on the basis of half-truths and untruths and misunderstandings, then pretty soon the gravediggers of our prosperity will have some very serious questions to answer. They will have to account for what they have said and done. But that will be of no consolation. For we will be out, out for good, diminished as an influence upon the world, a truly Great Britain shrunk down to a little England, perhaps without Scotland, perhaps with a grumpy Wales, and certainly with a Northern Ireland divided from the south by the border controls that would then be the edge of the European Union. That is not how our island story should go.
- He praised David Cameron for the way he has conducted the campaign, and implied that some of Cameron’s Tory opponents had been too abusive towards him.
I think the prime minister has fought an extremely brave campaign in very difficult circumstances. He’s put facts before our nation, he’s warned of the dangers, and that is his duty as prime minister. He cannot ignore the dangers that we face, and it is his responsibility to put those dangers before people. And in return for doing that he has faced a great deal of opposition and sometimes abuse from people who frankly we might have expected better from. And I think the way in which he has conducted himself in putting the country before self and the country before party is quite remarkable. And, David, I warmly congratulate you on what you have managed to achieve.
- He said that leaving the EU would not solve the immigration problem. High immigration was a short-term that would diminish as Europe recovered economically, he said.
Let me say just a word about immigration. I come from Brixton, I was brought up in the 50s, I know a little about it from direct experience. And I have to tell you this. In a world that has changed, in a world that is on the move in almost every part of the world, leaving the European Union is no solution to the scale of migration around the world. it is a reaction to it, but it isn’t a solution to it. And to try and solve a short-term problem that will diminish as the European economy begins to grow again, and leave Europe and risk a far greater longterm impact to our prosperity in the world is quite disproportionate to the problem that we face.
- He said mocked Leave for raising fears about Turkey joining the EU.
And I find it extraordinary that people should point to Turkey and suggest that 77m Turks are suddenly going to descend and take all our hospital places and all our school places and all our local authority dwellings. They have been negotiating for 30 years without getting in. They are not going to get in in my judgment for one decade, two decades, perhaps ever. Even if they do get in, we are not in the Schengen zone. And even if that happened in some far distant future, what absurdity it is to suggest all 77m Turks are suddenly going to say ‘Let’s go to the United Kingdom. The national living wage has risen by 50p. Let’s get there as quickly as we can.’
- He said the EU would be weaker if the UK left, and that this would be bad for Britain.
Let me turn the telescope of introspection around for a moment. Suppose tomorrow our nation decided to leave Europe. Not only would that be disastrous for us. But if we leave, what would that mean for Europe? What would Europe lose if they lost the British? Well, firstly they would lose the best performing economy in Europe, the economy that on the trends of recent years may very well in 15 years’ time be the biggest economy in Europe, bigger than Germany. They will lose one of only two nations that have a military capability of significance and a nuclear capacity. And they would lose the country with the longest, the widest and the deepest foreign policy reach of any European nation. Europe itself without Britain would shrink and would be diminished.
In a world of three great economic powers, America, China, Europe, do we really wish our continent to sink to a lower level of significance than America and China. I don’t. I think the European voice is worth having and worth listening to and I don’t wish to see it washed away because the British moved away from Europe.
- He joked about his own reputation for being boring.
The prime minister is quite young. Well, youngish. And I’m not, so perhaps I represent the grey vote. Some have said I always have done.
Nine MPs are yet to declare which way they will vote in the EU referendum, with less than 24 hours until polls open - while nearly three-quarters are voting to remain, the Press Association reports.
A survey of all 650 MPs carried out by the Press Association found 478 (73.5%) are voting Remain, while less than a quarter (159) are voting Leave. Some 1.4% have not yet declared.
Four further MPs - Speaker John Bercow (Buckingham) and Deputy Speakers Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley), Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) and Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) - will remain undeclared, having invoked their roles within the House of Commons as the reason.
Of the nine MPs, seven will not be sharing how they will vote on Thursday, the Press Association understands.
These include Ian Liddell-Grainger, MP for Bridgewater and West Somerset.
The long-planned Hinkley Point nuclear power station is within Liddell-Grainger’s constituency and he said he did not want to jeopardise the project by declaring his vote in the referendum.
Conservative Liddell-Grainger said: “I have actually made myself very clear about Europe in the past but we are so close after nine-and-a-half years of trying so I’m not prepared to say either way.”
He added: “If it hadn’t been for Hinkley I would have declared but I am not going to say. It is right in the middle of my constituency.”
Five other Tory MPs -Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford), Seema Kennedy (South Ribble), Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire), Anne Milton (Guildford) and Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) - also said they would not be declaring how they intended to vote.
Warley’s John Spellar will not be declaring his voting intention, his office said. He remains the final Labour MP to reveal how he will be voting in Thursday’s referendum.
Huw Merriman, Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle, said he would only announce which way he intended to vote on polling day after he had “finished a programme of discussions” with constituents.
Tory MP Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) declined to confirm which way he would be voting.
Jeremy Corbyn turned down an invitation to appear with David Cameron and Tim Farron at a cross-party rally today, BuzzFeed reports. Corbyn has always said he would not share a platform with Cameron.
Here is a Guardian picture gallery with some of the best pictures from the campaign.
Q: You used to back Turkey joining the EU. [Martha Kearney plays a clip of Boris Johnson saying he favoured Turkey joining. It is from the TV documentary he made to promote his book about Rome, which also includes a pro-Turkey line.)
Johnson says that when he made those comments the EU was a different kind of organisation.
Boris Johnson on the World at One
Boris Johnson is being interviewed on the World at One.
Q: Sadiq Khan accused you last night of running Project Hate.
Johnson says he does not accept that. He is running a positive campaign.
Q: What about Michael Gove compared economists to Nazis.
Johnson ignores the question, and says there are experts on both sides of this debate.
Q: Are the IMF like Nazis?
Johnson says Gove has run a fantastic campaign, and was right about this. He says the IMF did not foresee the 2008 crash and were wrong about the euro.
Q: But that does not make them Nazis. Doesn’t this suggest you are running Project Hate.
Johnson says he has run a very positive campaign.
- Johnson defends Gove’s decision to compare anti-Brexit economists to Nazi propagandists.
Boris Johnson: Gove is right to use Nazi analogy https://t.co/luqPVhroNL #wato pic.twitter.com/P8n6Ag6aHs
— The World at One (@BBCWorldatOne) June 22, 2016
He says immigration is good for the country.
Q: So would you cut it to below 100,000.
Johnson says that is a matter for the government. But he thinks the government should be in control.
Q: What level do you think net migration should be?
Johnson says the current level, 333,000, is too high. And he says 184,000 net, the figure for EU migration, is also too high.
Duncan Smith accuses Cameron of 'lying to the British people' over Turkey
Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, has accused David Cameron of “lying to the British people” over Turkey. Duncan Smith was responding to Newsnight’s interview last night with Ilnur Cevik, an adviser to the Turkish president, who said Cameron had supported Turkey joining the EU (see 7.27am), and to a line in Sir John Major’s speech this morning where he suggested Turkey could join the EU within a decade.
Duncan Smith said:
David Cameron has repeatedly claimed that Turkey is not going to join the EU despite it being Government policy. Now the Turkish government has confirmed that he is the ‘chief supporter’ of their bid to join the EU.
Cameron also said that Turkey will not join until the year 3000 but Sir John Major has let the cat out of the bag - Turkey could be in the EU in ten years’ time.
I’m afraid there is no conclusion you can draw from this, except that David Cameron is colluding with the EU and lying to the British people. Families are suffering the consequences of uncontrolled migration - a direct result of the EU’s obsession with freedom of movement.
Duncan Smith has put quite an extreme interpretation on what Major said this morning. Major said he thought Turkey would not be joining the EU “in in my judgment for one decade, two decades, perhaps ever”.
A man named Laurence Taylor who says he is “fed up with the rubbish being talked about immigration” has taken a full-page advert in the Metro to argue that it is a non-issued, the Political Scrapbook blog reports.
Outside the Scottish parliament the folk music wing of the Remain movement have been out in action this morning, my colleague Severin Carrell reports.
— Severin Carrell (@severincarrell) June 22, 2016
The EU referendum campaign has damaged the image of the Conservative party, according to an Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard.
The proportion of voters who think the Conservatives have the best team of leaders has sunk from 43 to 36 per cent since January, found Ipsos MORI.
And the proportion who think the Tories are the most “clear and united” about their policies has dropped from 33 to just 24 per cent ...
However, the Conservatives are well ahead of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party on both measures.
Cameron says Gove has 'lost it' with Nazi propagandists comment
David Cameron criticised Michael Gove in an interview with LBC for comparing anti-Brexit economists to Nazi propagandists. (See 10.49am.) In a subsequent interview with Sky News, Cameron went further, saying Gove had “lost it”. He said:
To hear the Leave campaign today sort of comparing independent experts and economists to Nazi sympathisers - I think they have rather lost it.
These people are independent - economists who have won Nobel prizes, business leaders responsible for creating thousands of jobs, institutions that were set up after the war to try to provide independent advice. It is right to listen.
Here are some more lines from the end of Nigel Farage’s press conference (which I missed because it was not covered on Sky News or BBC.)
Farage on staying on as UKIP leader - doesn't know what will him to him, Cameron or anyone else. 'Winning is what matters'
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) June 22, 2016
Farage tells journalist from Norway: 'it must be dreadful coming from a country like that!'
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) June 22, 2016
Farage says country to watch is Italy where the anti-EU five star movement have won major election for mayor of Rome
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) June 22, 2016
Farage then tells a Portuguese journalist that it is "pitiful" what the euro had done to his country
— Patrick Kidd (@patrick_kidd) June 22, 2016
Nigel Farage on his post-referendum future: "Don't ask a general going into battle what he does if he loses."
— John Ashmore (@smashmorePH) June 22, 2016
My colleague Michael Slezak has sent me more on the memorial event for Jo Cox in Sydney. (See 9.50am.) There were just over 20 people there.
Organiser of the Sydney event, Neva Frecheville, said she felt the need to bring together people who knew Cox or who were moved by her, following her death.
“When it happened it was just something that I feel like has the potential to make us all feel really isolated and full of despair and without hope. But actually there’s an opportunity for us to come together around everything that Jo stood for in her life, and the values that she lived her life by. I think it’s time for more of us to start living those as well,” she said.
One of the people who attended the event was Nic Seton. He said he knew Cox from when he lived in a boat in East London in 2010, right next door to the boat Cox lived in.
“We just by chance happened to pull up next door to their home – their boat,” he said. “We’d invite them over, and we went over to their place. We had a lot of barbecues and a really good time.”
Like Frecheville, Seton wanted to see the good that could come out of what he said was a devastating tragedy. “I feel like the silver lining really is that people have recognised that the values that she had and are really seeking to fulfill it themselves,” he said.
Jane McAdam, a law professor at the University of New South Wales, said she knew Cox’s husband, Brendan Cox, and attended partly because of that connection. “But I think more broadly it was what Jo devoted her life to in upholding the principles that she thought were so important in trying to create a society that was connected and not divided,” she said.
Boris Johnson has been heckled in Ashby, the Press Association’s David Hughes reports.
Boris heckled by teenage Remain supporter in Ashby - and by a lady asking him to kick Cameron out if Leave win. pic.twitter.com/8ZimylHwB2
— David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) June 22, 2016
Q: In the event of Brexit, would you stay on as Ukip leader to ensure that Leave commit to cutting immigration?
Farage says whatever happens tomorrow Ukip will have an important role to play. It is the biggest party in the European parliament, and, like the canary in the mineshaft, it will be able to say if reform is not happening.
My colleague Marina Hyde points out (not for the first time) that Farage does not seem to fully understand the metaphor he is using.
"We'll act as the canary in the mineshaft" says Farage of Ukip post-Brexit, still failing to get what this metaphor means for the canary
— Marina Hyde (@MarinaHyde) June 22, 2016
Updated
Farage says the establishment have done all they can to stack the odds in their favour, but that he still thinks Leave will win.
Farage is now taking questions from the media.
Q: Diane James said last night you had apologised for the “Breaking Point’ poster. Is that correct?
Farage says he apologised for the timing of the poster, and for the fact it was abused. But he cannot apologise for the content, because it is true. He says Angela Merkel’s immigration policy had been disastrous.
There has been one really offensive poster, he says. It was the Operation Black Vote one showing a Leave supporters as a skinhead. He says that was “offensive” and “abusive” and an “absolute disgrace”.
He is referring to this image.
Updated
Farage says that for the last time he will take out his passport to make the point that people do not have British passports anymore.
He says Remain support is dominated by vested interests.
He says Cameron has made another dishonest claim today. He says Cameron said if we voted to stay in the EU, we would be voting for more reform. (See 8.26am.) But that is not the case, he says. He says other prime ministers have tried to reform the EU. But the only reform the EU is interested in is more integration, he says.
And he says one of the lasting images of the campaign for him was Bob Geldof shouting abuse at him on the Thames as he tried to give voice to the grievances of fishermen. Geldof is a millionaire rock star, he says. People like that do not care about ordinary people, he says.
He says most of his supporters would “crawl over broken glass” to get to a polling station tomorrow.
Nigel Farage's speech
Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, is speaking in London.
He says that he thinks Ukip and its supporters have changed politics, not just in a way that will be reflected in the result tomorrow, but in a way that will affect the country more permanently.
He says he is hearing politicians talk about things like an Australian-style points system - something Ukip has been calling for for ages.
He says the term single market is misleading. We are part of a customs union, or more accurately a big business cartel, he says.
Major accuses Johnson and Gove of being 'gravediggers of prosperity'
Here is the key passage from Sir John Major’s speech in Bristol. He accused Boris Johnson and Michael Gove of being “gravediggers of prosperity”.
Now, if our nation does vote to leave tomorrow, we must respect their decision. But if they vote to leave on the basis of half-truths and untruths and misunderstandings, then pretty soon the gravediggers of our prosperity will have some very serious questions to answer. They will have to account for what they have said and done. But that will be of no consolation. For we will be out, out for good, diminished as an influence upon the world, a truly Great Britain shrunk down to a little England, perhaps without Scotland, perhaps with a grumpy Wales, and certainly with a Northern Ireland divided from the south by the border controls that would then be the edge of the European Union. That is not how our island story should go.
There is not a text of what Major said yet, because he was speaking off the cuff, but it was a substantial and effective speech. I will post a proper summary later.
John Barnes accuses Leave of preying on people's fears about immigration
Yesterday Michael Gove, the leading Vote Leave campaigner, claimed that John Barnes, the former England footballer, was backing Brexit. Gove was wrong. Barnes is for Remain.
And he has written a powerful article for the Guardian explaining why. For Barnes, immigration is the key factor.
Leave is preying on people’s fears, telling the same story we’ve heard over the years about black people from Africa and the Caribbean coming to steal our jobs. Now we hear the same thing about Poles. If leave wanted to say that companies are paying migrants less than British workers, and so allowing them to take our jobs, then it should be looking at raising the minimum wage – not stopping migrants entering the country. The problem has nothing to do with the Polish workers – it is an issue about our labour laws. Yet leave maintains its focus on immigration ...
Britain has always told the world that being British is about the humanity, compassion and moral fortitude that we have. All great things that we are supposed to have spread across the world. A leave vote now says that we don’t really care about anyone else, we don’t care what happens to the European Union. Why should the Germans be able to show more compassion than we do? ...
And when politicians talk about welcoming different, more skilled immigrants – who are they talking about anyway? If there were thousands of blond-haired, blue-eyed Americans landing at Dover, seeking refuge, I think many of us would be straight down there to help. So many groups of people, whether they be from Africa or the Middle East, have been demonised and dehumanised because they don’t look like us. I’m not accusing anyone of being racist. I’m black, I was born in Jamaica, but this affects me too. I know I would feel more empathy with that boat of white American refugees than I do with the thousands fleeing Syria. It’s because of what we have all been told and the environment that we live in. I don’t look like a white American any more than I do a Syrian – but I was brought up in a society that has taught me to empathise more with them.
And here is the full article.
Cameron condemns Gove for comparing anti-Brexit economists to Nazi propagandists
The media blitz continues. The PM has been on LBC, where he was quizzed about the Queen’s views on Brexit.
Following a report that she challenged dinner guests for three reasons why the UK should stay in, David Cameron said: “The conversations we have are entirely private and will remain that way.”
The PM also had some harsh words for Michael Gove, the justice secretary and his close political friend, who had compared experts warning against Brexit to experts who were n the pay of Nazis.
Let me tell you what I think is the most extraordinary thing in the news today, and that is the Leave campaign, comparing these independent experts, businesses, economists, Nobel Prize winners to sort of Nazi propagandists. [See 8.43am.] I think is the most extraordinary thing when you know people who are …
I think I’m afraid the Leave campaign here are making a massive mistake. If in our country, you know look at these people, some of them won Nobel Prizes, many of them are working for independent institutions we set up after the war. These businesses don’t normally come off the fence on an issue like this and speak so clearly. And I think when you’ve got that weight of opinion saying there’s a real risk to the British economy, to jobs, to families’ finances then it really is worth listening.
And if we’re going to go to a world where we say, I’m not going to listen to experts, that’s an extraordinary thing to do.
When asked if it wasn’t going to be very tough to work with Gove again after Friday, Cameron said:
Well no, as I say I don’t think it will be because all Conservatives agree, it was right to have a referendum and it’s right to carry out the instructions of people. This is not about some sort of Tory psycho drama and who likes who and who and all the rest of it. This is about the future of our country.
Here is John Harris’s latest Anywhere but Westminster video about the EU referendum campaign.
Britain should stay in Europe for the sake of its countryside and natural world, according to a group of current and former ministers, MPs and representatives of conservation organisations.
In a letter to The Independent, the 37 signatories write that: “It’s only with a strong voice in the EU that we can protect and enhance the environment, meaning that our precious wildlife and natural resources are preserved for generations to come.”
The list of names is impressive. Liz Truss and Rory Stewart, the current environment secretary and environment minister, are on there, along with Stanley Johnson, a long-time environmentalist and former Tory MEP, and father of Brexiter-in-chief, Boris Johnson. Former heads of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Countryside Alliance, and the Environment Agency feature too.
While climate change has had a fair airing in the TV debates and the campaign – repeatedly deployed by the remain camp as an example of a problem that can’t be solved without working in the EU – the natural world has hardly featured.
Yet the UK used to be known as the “dirty man of Europe”, and almost all our protections for wildlife and nature come from the EU, from the birds and habitats directives to ones on river water quality and bathing water. “By working in partnership with other European countries we have ensured our rivers, streams and coastline are in the healthiest state for 25 years,” the letter writers say, adding that “EU action has also led to an increase in bird numbers.”
Last night’s referendum debate broadcast from Wembley arena, which saw clashes between London mayor Sadiq Khan and his predecessor Boris Johnson, drew in 3.9m viewers.
The two-hour show on BBC1 had an audience share of just over 19%, but suffered going up against Spain’s Euro 2016 clash with Croatia, which was watched by 4.6 million, accounting for 23.5% of all viewers.
The number of people tuning in was up on the 3m who watched Johnson’s previous debate appearance on 10 June on ITV when he went up against SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Labour’s Angela Eagle, but down slightly on the 4 million who watched the debate Ukip leader Nigel Farage David Cameron two days earlier.
The final debate will take place tonight on Channel 4, with a revolving panel chosen from an audience of high profile remain, leave and undecided representatives, including Yvette Cooper, Louise Mensch, Delia Smith and Ulrika Jonsson.
Updated
Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader, is speaking now at the event with David Cameron and Sir John Major. She is there with Marvin Rees, the new Labour mayor of Bristol.
Major says if we vote to leave the “gravediggers of our prosperity” will have a great deal of explaining to do.
Updated
Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, is speaking now at an event with David Cameron and Harriet Harman.
My Guardian Australia colleague Michael Slezak has been at the Jo Cox memorial event in Sydney. He has posted these pictures on Twitter.
People in Sydney come together and make speeches to celebrate Jo Cox's birthday. #MoreInCommon pic.twitter.com/P8Wjpz0TL7
— Michael Slezak (@MikeySlezak) June 22, 2016
Most people at the small gathering in Sydney are speaking abt their personal connection to Jo Cox. #MoreInCommon pic.twitter.com/8EOZdLgthK
— Michael Slezak (@MikeySlezak) June 22, 2016
Nic Seton lived in a boat next to Jo Cox in London in 2010 and gathered here in Sydney to remember her #MoreInCommon pic.twitter.com/Kx7iDu66rf
— Michael Slezak (@MikeySlezak) June 22, 2016
It turns out that Operation Croissant has become Operation Postcard.
This is an initiative staged by Parisiens who want to show Britons at King’s Cross station in London this morning how much the French want them to stay in the EU. The original plan was to hand out free croissants. But the organisers say they were advised by the police that this would be illegal (giving food or drink to people to influence their vote, or “treating” as it is known, used to be a standard election practice many years ago, but a law was passed to make it an offence) and so instead the organisers decided to hand out postcards. Here are some of them.
The croissants are being donated to a shelter for the homeless instead.
More postcards from French people asking us to #remain #operationcroissant pic.twitter.com/BYC5DnsIwb
— Rhiannon L Cosslett (@rhiannonlucyc) June 22, 2016
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire.
The Press Association has more on Boris Johnson’s visit to Maldon.
Johnson’s next campaign stop was in Maldon, Essex, where he joined Brexit-backing Cabinet minister John Whittingdale.
After a walk through the town marked by the usual ritual of posing for selfies, signing autographs and acknowledging shouts of support from passing motorists, the former London mayor told activists: “I do think that we are on the verge, possibly, of an extraordinary event in the history of our country and indeed in the whole of Europe.”
He added: “It’s all going to about getting our supporters out to vote and if we do it I really think tomorrow can be independence day.”
But the rally was interrupted by former Tory supporter Nigel Brunt, who said: “Democracy will win tomorrow and it will be Remain.”
Brunt, who was jeered by the Vote Leave activists, told local MP Whittingdale: “As an ex, now, Conservative supporter in this borough, I hope you resign after the vote.”
Johnson stopped to buy copies of Brexit-backing newspapers The Sun and Daily Telegraph in Maldon.
The Tory MP, a Telegraph columnist, flicked through the papers as he strolled around the town.
Remainers might have Operation Croissant, but Boris Johnson has a wild salmon:
Johnson had an early start at Billingsgate fish market, where he also revealed that he had once “kissed a crocodile in Australia”.
Less surprisingly, he then told BBC Breakfast that he was pushing for an Australian-style points system for immigration, and “personally would advocate” a cut in the number of people coming to the UK.
He then skipped on to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, where he said of the money sent by Britain to Europe:
Some of it is spent in this country by Brussels bureaucrats, some of it comes back in the form of rebate but that is at the discretion of the EU, and half of it we never see again – it just vanishes.
It is spent in a way that is extremely dodgy and in many ways, and very often as you know, it is the subject of corruption.
Johnson is currently in Maldon, Essex, with John Whittingdale, the pro-Brexit culture secretary.
And it’s still only 9am. It’s going to be a long last day of campaigning.
Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi has written his please-don’t-go column for the Guardian this morning; in Warsaw, the palace of culture and science switched on the red, white and blue lights last night:
At St Pancras station this morning, London commuters were met with Operation Croissant – Parisians wielding croissants and messages to voters to stay with the EU:
Postcards from Paris for London commuters this morning asking them to #remain #operationcroissant pic.twitter.com/Lm04qdN52D
— Rhiannon L Cosslett (@rhiannonlucyc) June 22, 2016
Also in London, Tate Modern was lit up last night, too:
Updated
It feels a little too early in today’s live blog for Godwin’s law, so apologies, but we have our first Nazi reference of the day.
Via Press Association:
Michael Gove has compared economic experts warning about the fall-out of Brexit to the Nazis who orchestrated a smear campaign against Albert Einstein in the 1930s.
The justice secretary, who co-chairs the Vote Leave campaign, said experts cannot always be trusted, after being challenged over why he is not heeding the advice of many economists who have warned that Brexit could have dire consequences and tip the economy into recession.
The International Monetary Fund, 10 Nobel-prize winning economists and the Bank of England have all warned that leaving the EU could damage the economy.
Gove told LBC:
I think the key thing here is to interrogate the assumptions that are made and to ask if these arguments are good.
We have to be careful about historical comparisons, but Albert Einstein during the 1930s was denounced by the German authorities for being wrong and his theories were denounced, and one of the reasons of course he was denounced was because he was Jewish.
They got 100 German scientists in the pay of the government to say that he was wrong and Einstein said: ‘Look, if I was wrong, one would have been enough.’
The truth is that if you look at the quality of the analysis, if you look at the facts on the ground, you can come to an appropriate conclusion.
And the appropriate conclusion, I think, all of us can come to is that with growth rates so low in Europe, with so many unemployed and with the nature of the single currency so damaging, freeing ourselves from that project can only strengthen our economy.
Updated
Cameron: I will accept the instructions of the British people
Cameron reacts strongly to a suggestion that the UK risks tying itself to a dying institution:
We are not shackled to a corpse, you can see the European economy is recovering … The vision of Britain in Europe is that we do have a special status, you have the best of both worlds …
I am a deeply patriotic person … I don’t want to give that up to some sort of United Europe.
We achieve more if we’re in these organisations fighting for British interests rather than standing outside, ear pressed to the glass.
And will he still be prime minister on Friday, come what may?
I will accept the instructions of the British people and get to work to deliver them.
And he’s done.
Updated
Cameron says we need to come up with “smart ways” of managing immigration, citing efforts to curb criminals from coming into Britain and cracking down on sham marriages.
He says reform will continue “on Friday” if the UK stays inside the EU.
There are people in our country who haven’t had as good chances as I’d like them to have … stating in the European Union is actually going to increase people’s life chances.
Staying in the EU makes it easier, too, to tackle issues such as terrorism and climate change, Cameron says.
Cameron says the claim by his former adviser Steve Hilton that he knew four years ago that it would be impossible to cut net migration to the tens of thousands is “simply not true”.
He says that when Hilton left No 10 in 2012, net migration was falling “and the forecast was that we would be meeting the target we had”.
(As Cameron told the Guardian on the same question: “The figures were 244,000 in 2010 and by the autumn of 2012 it was down to 154,000, so it was falling towards that ambition.”)
Updated
Cameron: We don’t solve our immigration challenge by leaving the European Union but we do create a massive problem for our economy.
In the debate last night, the leave campaign admitted it could take 10 years to negotiate a trade deal.
Cameron insists that the safeguards against “ever closer union” are legally binding on the other 27 member states if the UK votes to remain.
It’s undeniable that we have the best of both worlds.
This [a vote to leave] is irreversible: you can’t jump out of the aeroplane then climb back in through the cockpit hatch.
Cameron denies that the concessions he secured on EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits amount to very little.
That will make a difference … It’s about a principle as well as the numbers: if you come and work here, you have to pay in for four years before you get anything out of the system.
He argues that concessions he achieved add to the UK’s “special status” in the EU:
We were at risk of getting drawn into bailouts of the euro … We did not have that guarantee and that is now guaranteed.
Cameron Today programme interview
David Cameron is speaking on Radio 4 now. He also gave an interview to the Guardian, which you can read here.
On his decision to call the referendum and whether he was effectively bumped into it, he says:
We haven’t had a say on this issue since the 1970s. Europe has changed … I would dispute that this has been done in a hurry.
Scottish leaders back remain
Scotland’s political leaders and its five surviving first ministers have released joint cross-party statements urging voters to back remain, as the campaigns began their final push before referendum day.
The five first ministers, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon for the SNP, Jack McConnell and Henry McLeish for Scottish Labour, with Jim Wallace, the Scottish Lib Dem twice acting first minister, said Scotland had to “maximise the remain vote” on Thursday:
The stakes could hardly be higher. Staying in the European Union and its single market is vital for jobs and investment in Scotland, and also enshrines key protections for workers and consumers.
In a splash story reminiscent of the controversial “vow” by UK party leaders on the eve of Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014, the Daily Record published what it said was an unprecedented joint statement by the leaders of Scotland’s five main parties.
Tomorrow's Daily Record carries an unprecedented joint statement from all five Holyrood party leaders backing Remain pic.twitter.com/YL8yzz1JAP
— David Clegg (@davieclegg) June 21, 2016
Sturgeon, along with Ruth Davidson for the Scottish Tories, Kezia Dugdale of Scottish Labour, Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens and Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie, said they set aside their policy differences to agree on the need to stay in the EU:
We disagree on much, but this issue transcends party politics – staying in Europe and its single market of over 500 million people is vital for jobs, investment and opportunities for the people of Scotland.
Scotland has ancient trading and educational links with our European neighbours. In the aftermath of World War II, the EU was established as ‘Project Peace’, to turn swords into ploughshares.
Peace on our continent is a precious legacy, and a powerful example to the rest of the world. We should not turn our backs on all that has been achieved …
Common sense tells us that if Scotland is taken out of the world’s biggest free trade area, our economy will be damaged. It would be all pain for no gain.
Global tributes to Jo Cox
Most of the worldwide events in memory of Jo Cox – synchronised to take place today, on what would have been her 42nd birthday, under the banner #MoreInCommon – are happening later, around 4pm UK time.
Some have already taken place, such as this tribute in Melbourne, at Oxfam Australia:
"We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us." Vale Jo Cox #MoreInCommon pic.twitter.com/hcwSeMsb2k
— Ula Majewski (@ulamajewski) June 22, 2016
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd added his support:
Today would've been Jo Cox’s 42nd birthday. Keep her legacy alive: https://t.co/8VVHgHxX1R #moreincommon #lovelikeJo pic.twitter.com/j8vwMLvSLK
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) June 22, 2016
The Google UK homepage has added a note to mark the day and link to a fundraising page for three charities supported by Cox. The fund has now surpassed £1.2m.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I think it’s fair to say that the Sun and David Cameron are never, ever getting back together:
"Don't put your trust in Cameron" --- @TheSun gets very personal against the PM pic.twitter.com/xiot8SPVPu
— Tim Montgomerie ن (@montie) June 22, 2016
The rhetoric about Turkey in this campaign has not gone unnoticed in that country, an adviser to the Turkish president has said.
Ilnur Cevik told BBC’s Newsnight on Wednesday that Turkish citizens would not “flood” to Britain if the country joined the EU, Press Association reports:
Cevik, who is close to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticised both David Cameron for “taking us for a ride” by indicating he supported the country joining the EU, and the Leave campaign for using the prospect as “an alibi” for Brexit.
He said Turkey is “deeply hurting” now that the prime minister has indicated he is unlikely to support its EU membership after Brexit campaigners used the potential accession to warn that it could open Britain’s borders to millions of Turks.
But responding to the leave campaign’s claims that could mean more Turkish criminals in the UK, Cevik told Newsnight:
Firstly, the crime rate is not high.
Secondly, there’s no extraordinary situation in this country that we would export anything to Britain.
But besides that, who’s going to come to Britain? Why should we be flooding Britain? There’s no reason. Whatever exists in Britain also exists in Turkey.
We are not going to go over there just because you produce Cadbury chocolates and Maltesers, for God’s sake.
They should not use us as an alibi, they should not use us as a pretext, they should really deal with the nitty-gritty of why they should be leaving.
Updated
Tory MEP and prominent leave campaigner Daniel Hannan has been speaking on the Today programme, where he was asked about that £350m figure, curiously absent from the Brexit arguments in last night’s BBC debate.
Hannan insisted the claim hadn’t been shelved:
No, I’m very comfortable to defend that figure: it’s the difference between gross and net … It’s not one that I’ve plucked out of the air.
It is true, he conceded:
We don’t literally, in a digitised age, put gold in the back of a van and drive it across the Channel.
But he argued that nobody would argue that the 20p income tax rate was
actually zero because we get it all back in schools and roads and hospitals.
Morning briefing
Good morning and welcome back to the live blog for the final day of campaigning ahead of tomorrow’s referendum.
I’ve rounded up the key moments of last night’s not-quite-final TV debate below, along with the rest of the news you need. Andrew Sparrow will be along later. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.
The big picture
David Cameron, in an interview with the Guardian after his earlier appeal to older voters, says the leave campaign has “become very narrowly focused” on immigration, stoking “an issue that needs careful handling”.
The UK is, he says, “arguably the most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith, opportunity democracy anywhere on earth”, and a vote to remain would send “a very clear message that we’ve rejected this idea that Britain is narrow and insular and inward-looking”.
Cameron gets a helping hand this morning from the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has written – via the Guardian – to British voters asking them not to make “the wrong choice”:
Seen from Italy, a vote to leave Europe would not be a disaster, a tragedy or the end of the world for you in the UK. It would be worse, because it would be the wrong choice. It would be a mistake for which you the voters primarily would pay the price. Because who really wants Britain to be small and isolated?
If there’s one thing the British have never done when faced with a challenge that concerns their future, their very identity, it is to make the wrong choice. A Britain less great than it is would go against the very logic of those who want an exit. It would swap autonomy for solitude, pride for weakness, and identity for self-harm.
Last night’s BBC Big Referendum Come Dancing Debate (I’d love to claim that, but it’s a John Crace copyright) pitted Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, London mayor Sadiq Khan and TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady for remain, against Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Andrea Leadsom and Labour MP Gisela Stuart for leave.
A snap YouGov poll for the Times found 39% thought leave had won it, over 34% for remain (and a bumper 17% who didn’t know). The same group of those polled were, however, still just a smidgen more likely to vote for remain: 41% to 40%.
What we learned
I’m going to assume that regular readers and anyone who’s prised open an eyelid at any point during this referendum campaign can take a guess at the key points covered:
- The economy People would lose their jobs and business leaders think we should stay (remain); the EU wouldn’t dare impose tariffs and James Dyson thinks we’d be fine (leave).
- Workers’ rights The EU guarantees protections (remain); the UK could guarantee them itself (leave).
- Immigration No silver bullet (leave); take back control of borders (leave).
As my colleague Andrew Sparrow neatly summed it up: “The exchanges bear so little relation to the questions that one wonders why [David] Dimbleby bothers to ask them.”
Still, we did glean a few new things:
-
Davidson is not afraid to take on her own party colleagues, tackling Johnson over his attitude to people losing their jobs, and accusing Leadsom of a “blatant untruth” on the proportion of laws made in Brussels. (On that last point, by the way, a BBC reality check concludes they were both wrong.)
- But the remain team avoided personal attacks on Johnson, after mixed reviews of that tactic in the ITV debate.
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Davidson once worked as a reporter in the Balkans and served in the Territorial army. In response to a claim by Johnson that Europe had failed to bring about peace in the Kosovan war until the US and Nato “asserted its primacy”, Davidson retorted:
I think Boris maybe misjudged this panel by talking about the Balkans because what he probably doesn’t know is that I was sent to the Balkans at the end of the Kosovo war as a reporter and I have never been more proud of being British in my life than watching British troops with a union jack on their arms, believing in something, pulling their weight, and helping in the European Union. That’s what caused me to join up and serve. I think I am the only one on this panel that has ever worn the Queen’s uniform.
-
Scotland can’t export haggis to the US, Johnson said, blaming EU rules (disappointing fact check: it’s actually a US Department of Agriculture regulation):
Because the EU is in charge of our trade negotiations we cannot export haggis to America.
- Leadsom is a mother. Stuart is a mother and a grandmother. It was a fact repeated enough times that Davidson felt the need to add:
I do just have to remind people that there are mums and dads and grans and grandads on this side as well.
-
Khan broke his fast on stage during the debate, having eaten nothing for 19 hours to observe Ramadan.
Enjoyed making the positive case to stay in the EU on #BBCDebate. And yes - I did break my fast on stage #Ramadan pic.twitter.com/iKXLbUGeaD
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) June 21, 2016
What we didn’t
- O’Grady wanted to know if Vote Leave would return a £600,000 donation from a former BNP member. Leadsom said the question was “unworthy of this debate”.
- Davidson lamented that “we are not having a grown-up argument” about immigration. Do we know what that might look like?
- Why none of the leave side mentioned that £350m figure.
The key exchange
Khan: Let’s deal with this big fat lie once and for all. Turkey isn’t about to join. And until three months ago, you knew that was the case, Boris Johnson … You are using the ruse of Turkey to scare people to vote to leave.
Johnson: I’m a Turk!
Zinger of the night
Khan’s “Project Hate” accusation, levelled at Johnson, captured a lot of headlines:
Your campaign hasn’t been project fear, it’s been project hate as far as immigration is concerned.
But Johnson of course had a pre-prepared soundbite of his own:
This Thursday can be our country’s independence day!
The Remain campaign verdict
Migration debate section reveals Leave are saying one thing to one audience and something else to another. Deceptive stuff. #BBCDebate
— Amber Rudd MP (@AmberRudd_MP) June 21, 2016
That Ruth Davidson had done her homework before the EU debate. Boris Johnson hadn't. She reached out. He looked down.
— tom_watson (@tom_watson) June 21, 2016
The Leave campaign verdict
No one better than @GiselaStuart, an immigrant, to combat ridiculous accusations that concern about immigration is hateful #BBCDebate
— Tim Montgomerie ن (@montie) June 21, 2016
Proud of @GiselaStuart @andrealeadsom & @BorisJohnson tonight. Message of common sense, optimism and confidence in our country. @vote_leave
— Penny Mordaunt MP (@PennyMordauntMP) June 21, 2016
You should also know
- Yvette Cooper has informed the police and Twitter after receiving a death threat online against her family.
-
A record 46,499,537 people are eligible to vote tomorrow.
- 1,200 business leaders – including leaders of 50 of the FTSE 100 – back remain.
- Tate & Lyle joins the campaign to leave the EU.
- Donald Trump campaign supports leave, citing America’s “own little Brexit”.
- Priti Patel will today warn that EU migration threatens UK class sizes.
- The Sun claims the Queen has been quizzing her “VIP guests” (does she have any other kind?), asking them: “Give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe.”
- And – drumroll – the Daily Mail comes out for Brexit.
Poll position
So far this morning, there are no fresh forecasts, but expect numbers today from ComRes, Opinium and YouGov. There should also be a last-gasp Ipsos Mori poll on Thursday morning.
Diary
- Nigel Farage makes his final speech of the campaign in London at 11am.
- Jeremy Corbyn is also in London at 2pm with mayor Sadiq Khan, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones.
- Stronger In rallies in Birmingham at 5pm, with David Cameron centre-stage alongside Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, who visits Cambridge first.
- Vote Leave has Boris Johnson roaming the skies in a helicopter and Michael Gove touring the south coast.
- At 4pm (UK time), memorials are being held worldwide to remember Jo Cox on what would have been her 42nd birthday. A service will be held in her constituency of Batley and Spen, synchronised with events in Trafalgar Square in London, Nairobi, Brussels, Beirut, New York, Washington DC, Edinburgh and many other places. A boat from the mooring where Cox lived with her family will lead a floral tribute along the Thames to Westminster. There’s a full list of commemorations here.
- At 9pm, Channel 4 hosts the final, final TV debate, with Jeremy Paxman and a huge list of remainers and leavers including some usual suspects (Alan Johnson, Alex Salmond, Nigel Farage) and some … not (Rick Astley, Delia Smith, Ulrika Jonsson). Perhaps Paxman can finally get to the bottom of whether Astley really will never give you up, let you down, run around or desert you.
Read these
It’s been pinging around Facebook, but now this piece by Martin Fletcher, a former foreign editor for the Times, has made its way to the New York Times:
For decades, British newspapers have offered their readers an endless stream of biased, misleading and downright fallacious stories about Brussels. And the journalist who helped set the tone – long before he became the mayor of London or the face of the pro-Brexit campaign – was Boris Johnson …
He wrote about European Union plans to take over Europe, ban Britain’s favourite potato chips, standardise condom sizes and blow up its own asbestos-filled headquarters. These articles were undoubtedly colourful but they bore scant relation to the truth.
Mr Johnson’s dispatches galvanised the rest of Britain’s highly competitive and partisan newspaper industry. They were far more fun than the usual dry, policy-driven Brussels fare. Editors at other newspapers, particularly but not exclusively the tabloids, started pressing their own correspondents to match Mr Johnson’s imaginative reports …
The upshot is that Mr Johnson and his fellow Brexit proponents are now campaigning against the caricature of the European Union that he himself helped create. They are asking the British people to part with a monster about as real as the one in Loch Ness.
Could Australia swing the EU vote, Julian Lorkin asks on the BBC website:
With 1.2 million British nationals in Australia, and 250,000 in New Zealand, both the stay and leave camps are in full campaign mode half a world away from the UK. Southern hemisphere votes have the potential to swing the knife-edge referendum.
Posters supporting both sides have sprouted in areas popular with UK residents. In some locations, such as Perth, up to 15% of the population was born in England …
Far more British expats live Down Under than elsewhere in the world. Only Spain, with 760,000, and the United States at 600,000 come close. As such they will wield considerable influence over whether the UK stays in the EU.
Cathy Newman in the Telegraph says Theresa May is the one to watch should Cameron take a tumble on Friday:
May is truly the quiet woman of British politics. And I don’t mean that as an insult. There’s no shortage of loud-mouths soaking up the attention and hogging the airwaves during this rancorous EU referendum campaign. The home secretary, by contrast, has been reserved to the point of invisibility …
Authority, though, is something May has in spades. The longest-serving home secretary for more than a century, she’s managed - in a department known for destroying reputations - to enhance hers. This is something of a miracle, particularly when you consider the government has failed to meet one of its central manifesto pledges on her watch: the promise to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.
Celebrity endorsement of the day
Still undecided? Let a famous person persuade you. Actor Liam Neeson has said he’s for staying in:
A UK exit would have the worst ramifications for the island of Ireland … It would be truly a shame to sacrifice all the progress that has been made by the peace process regarding border controls … There is strength in unity. A Brexit vote will make us weak.
Or how about King of Darts Bobby George? He’s for remain too.
And ex-footballer John Barnes came out fighting against claims by Michael Gove that he was a leaver – making what has been described by some as the most positive argument for immigration so far in this campaign:
Michael Gove says John Barnes is for Brexit, John Barnes calls us up and says absolutely not Michael Gove https://t.co/adA3QXzjWt
— Steve Gardner (@sgardner) June 21, 2016
The Channel 4 debate also chucks in a few leave celebs, with Selina Scott, DJ Mike Read (of Ukip calypso fame) and Gillian McKeith arguing for out.
The day in a tweet
Perhaps we could put it to a referendum?
All I want is a simple grand coalition headed by the dual premiership of @RuthDavidsonMSP and @SadiqKhan Is it SO DIFFICULT to arrange?
— Robert Webb (@arobertwebb) June 21, 2016
If today were a film ...
It would be Independence Day. Either (if you’re for Brexit) the box office-busting original or (if you’re for staying or perhaps just very, very tired) the newly released sequel described by Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw as “planet-smashingly boring … on its way to crush our minds”.
And another thing
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