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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Andrew Sparrow and Claire Phipps

Boris Johnson says Vote Leave is not an 'alternative government' – as it happened

Boris Johnson and Priti Patel meet workers at clothing and uniform manufacturers Simon Jersey in Accrington, Lancashire, during a visit as part of the Vote Leave EU referendum campaign. Quite what the joke was remains unclear.
Boris Johnson and Priti Patel meet workers at clothing and uniform manufacturers Simon Jersey in Accrington, Lancashire, during a visit as part of the Vote Leave EU referendum campaign. Quite what the joke was remains unclear. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Afternoon summary

  • Boris Johnson, the lead Vote Leave campaigner, has claimed that his group is not trying to set out an alternative programme for government. (See 4.55pm.) But his message was somewhat undermined by his Vote Leave colleague Priti Patel, the employment minister, who said the group were fighting to “take back control of our government”. At a campaign event she said:

We are campaigning for you, we are campaigning to take back control of our country and our government and unleash that control back to the British public.

  • Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, has said the EU would retaliate and restrict access to British workers if UK adopted Vote Leave’s migration plan. (See 4.07pm.)
  • The Conservative party has failed to block a legal bid giving police more time to investigate electoral fraud allegations. As the Press Association reports,magistrates granted Kent police an extra 12 months to investigate the claims during a hearing at Folkestone magistrates’ court on Wednesday. The Conservative party sent representation to the hearing to argue against the extension. A one-year time limit to launch potential criminal proceedings relating to the 2015 general election was due to expire on June 12.
  • Iain McNicol, the Labour party general secretary, has agreed to meet unions representing party employees to discuss their anger at the claim someone on the party’s staff is leaking information about Jeremy Corbyn’s plans for PMQs. As the Herald’s Kate Devlin reports, staff were infuriated by the claim made by Seumas Milne, the Guardian journalist currently working as Corbyn’s head of communications and strategy, in a fly-on-the-wall documentary for Vice News. Labour sources are playing down his comments. This is from PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Here is Stefan Rousseau, the Press Association’s chief political photographer’s, photo of the day.

Boris Johnson said today that he and his Vote Leave colleagues were not setting out an alternative programme for government. (See 4.55pm.) In a good column for the Evening Standard, Matthew d’Ancona begs to differ.

Here’s an excerpt.

The suspension of collective responsibility was not an invitation to a caucus of senior Tories to form a government within a government.

Both Johnson and Gove claim they will resume business as usual under Cameron’s leadership after June 23. But their actions suggest quite otherwise.

There is a fundamental difference between advocacy of Brexit and a blueprint for government policy after Britain has left the EU.

Today’s declaration may look innocent and even constructive — just watch as the two men deny that it has an ulterior motive — but it is the first stirrings of a coup.

The symbolism is clear: in announcing a new immigration strategy, Johnson and Gove are dramatizing a slow drainage of authority from Cameron to the Brexit gang. They have passed a point of no return.

Farage says points-based immigration system would not lead to immigration going up

And here are some of the news lines from Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s campaigning today.

  • Farage rejected Britain Stronger In Europe’s claim (see 10.59am) that having a points-based immigration system could lead to immigration going up. Asked about this, he replied:

No there wouldn’t. The point about an Australian-style system is that you chose. You set your number. I know more about this than most people. Every single year, Australia looks at what it thinks it needs to expand its country. It’s growing its country so it takes more people pro-rata than we would. But the point about it is that we can choose.

  • He rejected the warnings from the OECD about the impact of Brexit.

I’m used to overpaid failures telling us that everything will be bad. The OECD, the IMF, all these people said exactly the same things about us joining the euro 15 years ago. They were wrong then. They’re wrong now. They’ve been paid to say that.

Nigel Farage campaigning in a market in Leeds.
Nigel Farage campaigning in a market in Leeds. Photograph: Ian Hinchliffe/REX/Shutterstock

Eddie Izzard, the comedian and Labour activist, has been speaking at a Stand Up For Europe event in Edinburgh. He said Brexit was “synonymous with recession”.

Brexit is almost synonymous with recession. They’ve even stopped arguing about the economy, they’ve lost that argument.

All the experts from the governor of the Bank of England, all the way up to (US President) Barack Obama, the World Trade Organisation - even today the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, they said it (Brexit) is going to be bad.

Eddie Izzard speaking during an EU referendum debate last month.
Eddie Izzard speaking during an EU referendum debate last month. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Johnson claims Vote Leave not setting out an alternative programme for government

Here are some lines from Boris Johnson’s campaigning today. I’ve taken some of the quotes from the Press Association.

  • Johnson insisted that Vote Leave was not trying to set out an alternative programme for government. Asked if he and his colleagues were setting out an alternative vision for government, he replied: “The answer to that is no.” Explaining what Vote Leave were doing with their immigration plans, he said:

All we are saying is what any government could do and we are saying after we vote leave on June 23 it will be up to the government to take back control.

Not just of immigration policy but obviously of huge sums of money, of our ability to set our economic and political priorities and to stop the situation where 60% of the law going through the Palace of Westminster comes from the EU.

  • He said the Vote Leave immigration plans would enable the government to keep its promises.

What we are saying is that politicians when they make their promises about reducing immigration would be able to keep those promises because at the moment they can’t because of membership of the EU. That’s the crucial thing.

If a government says that it’s going to get numbers down to the tens of thousands which repeated promises have been made to that effect they would be able to deliver it.

  • He said cutting immigration would reduce house prices, particularly in the south east.

One of the things I could certainly imagine is that the pressure on prices, particularly in the south east, would abate. You’d get less pressure as a result of the huge influxes that we’re seeing.

  • He said David Cameron would not have to resign if Leave wins the referendum.

Of course [Cameron would stay as prime minister], there is no leader in Europe in the last 20 years who has stood down as the result of an adverse referendum.

UPDATE: Newsweek’s Josh Lowe points out that’s wrong. Johnson may have been thinking of referendums on EU matters.

  • Johnson accuses Remain campaigners of being afraid of holding meetings where they might encounter protests. Speaking at his open-air event in Preston just now he said:

We on this side of the argument do not have manicured, tame, controlled public meetings. We believe in taking the argument to the people and we believe that we can make that argument and we can win on June 23.

Johnson is right about this, at least as far as David Cameron’s events are concerned. Most of Cameron’s EU events have been at workplaces, where employees are inside and on their best behaviour. But partly this is for security reasons.

Boris Johnson poses for a selfie with a worker at clothing and uniform manufacturers Simon Jersey in Accrington, Lancashire, during a visit as part of the Vote Leave EU referendum campaign.
Boris Johnson poses for a selfie with a worker at clothing and uniform manufacturers Simon Jersey in Accrington, Lancashire, during a visit as part of the Vote Leave EU referendum campaign. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Boris Johnson is speaking now.

He thanks people for turning up. He says the Vote Leave events allow all people to turn up, unlike the “manicured” ones staged by Remain.

He says Remain campaigners do not understand the pressure immigration is putting on services.

He says 60% of laws, primary and secondary, come from Brussels.

We are losing control of our democracy, he says.

He says the big difference between Remain and Leave is that Remain “don’t believe in this country”.

We are the fifth biggest economy in the world, he says. We will thrive as never before if he leave the EU, he says.

Boris Johnson speaking in Preston.
Boris Johnson speaking in Preston. Photograph: BBC

Vote Leave event

Michael Gove and Priti Patel are introducing Boris Johnson at a Vote Leave event in Preston.

Priti Patel and Michael Gove
Priti Patel and Michael Gove. Photograph: BBC

Updated

Court grants Kent police more time for investigation into alleged Tory election overspending

Bad news for the Tories. As Sky’s Tamara Cohen reports, a court has granted Kent police an extension so that their investigation into alleged Conservative party election overspending does not run out of time because of the normal one-year time limit in election law.

Boris Johnson has also been arguing that cutting immigration would bring house prices down - an argument also used by his fellow Tory Brexiteer Chris Grayling in his Guardian interview today.

Boris Johnson is due to deliver a Vote Leave speech soon.

He has been travelling on the battlebus with journalists.

Dutch PM says EU would retaliate and restrict access to British workers if UK adopts Vote Leave migration plan

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, has told the BBC that if Britain were to implement the Vote Leave immigration plans, the EU would retaliate, restricting Britons’ access to the EU labour market. He said:

I was very much surprised by the Johnson/Gove proposals to make it harder for Europeans to work in the UK if Britain were to vote to leave the EU. I think it would be very bad news for the UK, for the Netherlands, for Europe as a whole, for two reasons.

First of all, take the Netherlands and the UK, we are both sea-faring nations. Our ability to create jobs, our future growth, is built on the free market. It’s built on open borders. And, secondly, it would be unavoidable, inevitable, for us and for many others in Europe to follow the same proposals, to implement a points-system also in the rest of the European Union. So you would get a race to the bottom. And that is exactly what you don’t want.

Mark Rutte.
Mark Rutte. Photograph: BBC

Boris Johnson was also interviewed by Joey Essex on the Vote Leave battlebus today.

As the Daily Mail reports, before the pair met Essex, a reality TV star, said he thought Johnson was “a bit nutty”.

Joey Essex (left) interviewing Boris Johnson, on the Vote Leave campaign bus in Lancashire.
Joey Essex (left) interviewing Boris Johnson, on the Vote Leave campaign bus in Lancashire. Photograph: James Fraser/PA

As the

Here are some more tweets from the Boris Johnson visit.

From the Guardian’s Rowena Mason

From the Daily Mail’s John Stevens

From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg

The Centre for European Reform, a pro-European thinktank, has put out a statement criticising two aspects of Vote Leave’s immigration reform proposals.

  • The CER says the Vote Leave proposals are “grossly misleading” because they do not take into account the impact on Britons wanting to work or study in the EU. Simon Tilford, its deputy director, said:

If the UK were to adopt this system, it would be impossible to negotiate access to the single market after a Brexit. But Vote Leave campaigners fail to spell this out to voters. They also fail to mention that if the UK goes down this path, the EU is likely to reciprocate in kind, meaning that those Britons who want to work and study in the EU would face new visa or permit requirements.

  • The CER accuses Vote Leave of exaggerating the extent to which immigration depresses the wages of the poor. John Springford, a CER senior research fellow, said:

Vote Leave have implied that the Bank of England estimates the impact of EU immigration on the wages of low-skilled workers as 2% - according to the Bank of England’s research, the effect is actually 0.77% (see 5th bar of the chart below). Tax rises and benefit cuts since 2010 have reduced the incomes of the poorest by far more than immigration.

To illustrate the point the CER released this chart. It compares varies assessments of the impact of immigration on wages with the impact of the minimum wage and benefit cuts on wages.

Impact of immigration on wages compared to impact of benefit cuts.
Impact of immigration on wages compared to impact of benefit cuts. Photograph: CER/Centre for European Reform

You can tell we’re in a proper election campaign because we’re getting rebuttal to the rebuttal.

Here is Vote Leave’s Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP, responding to George Osborne responding to Vote Leave’s immigration proposal.

The real fantasy politics is George Osborne’s commitment to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands while at the same time campaigning to remain in the EU.

The reality for the British people if we stay in is that Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey - with a combined population of 88 million - will all soon join the EU. When they do, EU migration to the UK could increase by 5m.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP and former mayor of London, and Priti Patel, the employment minister, are on a Vote Leave tour this afternoon, visiting a clothing factory in Accrington.

Lunchtime summary

  • David Cameron has said Vote Leave’s immigration proposals - put forward by his Tory colleagues Michael Gove and Boris Johnson - would “trash our economy”. In an interview with BBC Radio Derby he said adopting an Australian-style points-based immigration system, and leaving the single market, would be the wrong approach.

Australia has more migration per head than we do here in the UK, so I think it’s the wrong approach.

I also think if we were to say to Europeans they needed work permits to come to Britain, European countries would say to us we need work permits to go and work there. So not only would we trash our economy, we’d also reduce opportunities for people to work in other countries.

On a visit to a logistics firm in Harlow, Essex, George Osborne, the chancellor, made a similar argument.

The prime minister has secured a deal that ends the something for nothing culture.

What a contrast today between the Leave campaign with their fantasy politics, unworkable proposals that will increase immigration, take us out of the single market and cost us jobs, and the reality check in the real world of the highly respected OECD which points out the grim economic future for the UK outside the EU.

George Osborne tours manufacturing firm Luna Logistics in Harlow.
George Osborne tours manufacturing firm Luna Logistics in Harlow. Photograph: POOL/Reuters
  • BusinessEurope, which represents 34 national business federations like the CBI, has said European firms are delaying investment in the UK over fears of Brexit. In a statement, the presidents of the groups said:

Full access to the single market is a large part of the UK’s attractiveness to foreign investors. Yet several federations report that European businesses are postponing their investment decisions in the UK until the political situation becomes clearer.

A vote to leave the EU will only heighten the uncertainty around current and future investments as some tough negotiations will then begin.

  • Rob Wainwright, head of Europol, head of the EU’s law enforcement agency, has said Britain has one of the strongest borders in Europe. He gave the assessment as he defended the Border Force, which has faced claims that large stretches of the UK coastline are being left unpoliced. Wainwright told the Press Association.

It is worth pointing out that because Britain is an island, because Britain is outside the Schengen zone but also because it has information sharing arrangements with EU partners, it still has one of the strongest borders of any country in Europe. That is a consensus view right across Europe.

The Leave campaign has attracted some surprise support today. In a column for the French paper Liberation, Jean Quatremer, its veteran Brussels correspondent, urges Britons to vote to leave the EU to save the federalist dream.

It’s really not in your best interest to leave the EU ... If you stay, you’ll rot our lives like never before: David Cameron will be the only European leader who was able to win a referendum on Europe and thus will regain a central role in the community game.

The Berlaymonster blogger has translated some of it.

Emma Reynolds, the Labour MP who has been a shadow minister for housing and Europe, hit back at the Vote Leave proposals on immigration. “We would have immigration whether we leave the EU or not, and arguably we could have more illegal immigration. The idea that leaving the EU is some magic solution is frankly ridiculous.”
She said that it wasn’t primarily migration that was putting pressure on housing but, for example, the fact that people were living longer and that family breakdown meant there was more demand. “There is pressure from immigration but it is by no means the main reason we have a housing crisis.”

Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, has just been on the World at One. He said he was “very concerned” about the figures showing many Labour supporters do not know where the party stands on EU membership, but that it was unfair to blame Jeremy Corbyn.

He also said that he personally would not share a platform with David Cameron to promote the Remain campaign, as Sadiq Khan did.

Here is some Twitter comment on the Vote Leave immigration proposals. (See 10.29am.)

From Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary

From Alan Travis, the Guadian’s home affairs editor

From Jonathan Portes, a former government economist and immigration expert

From Andrew Lilico, chair of Economists for Britain

From Pawel Swidlicki, a policy analyst at Open Europe

From Raoul Ruparal, co-director of Open Europe

Updated

Trump to visit UK day after EU referendum

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for US president, is visiting the UK the day after the EU referendum, it has been revealed.

The Greens have attacked Vote Leave’s immigration proposals. (See 10.29am.) This is from the Green MEP Jean Lambert.

Misleading statements about immigration are framing free movement as a problem in the EU referendum debate. The truth is that government cuts, and lack of planning and investment in housing, skills and public services are the real problems – not immigration. Michael Gove is a member of that government and has wholeheartedly supported such spending cuts. As mayor of London, Boris Johnson ran an administration which failed to deliver on social housing or rent controls.

EU workers, like other migrant workers, make an important net contribution to our economy. They are our co-workers, our employers, our business associates, our neighbours, our friends, our family. They are contributors – not freeloaders.

My colleagues on Opinion (or Comment is Free, as we still think of it) are running a debate live blog looking at whether the EU referendum is the most abusive political campaign ever. It’s here.

They asked me for a contribution. This is what I sent them.

So, Jon Snow says he cannot recall a “worse-tempered or more abusive, more boring UK campaign” than the one we’re having at the moment about EU membership. He thinks it compares particularly unfavourably with Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014.

Snow clearly did not spend much time on Twitter two years ago. The independence referendum was an uplifting exercise in democratic engagement, prompting a remarkable 85% turnout, but the debate was not all worthy of Cicero, social media got distinctly unpleasant and it culminating in a large crowd descending on the BBC’s HQ in Glasgow to demand the sacking of Nick Robinson for having the temerity to report something disobliging about Alex Salmond.

Even by the standards of a normal general election, the EU referendum campaign does not seem unduly abusive. That is because general elections are about choosing prime ministers, personality is inevitably a legitimate subject of debate and, as figures like Neil Kinnock, John Major and Gordon Brown can attest, vicious, media-driven character assassination is a familiar part of the electoral process. This contest is relatively free of that.

But Snow has got a point about “the wholesale abuse of facts”. There is nothing unusual about politicians using facts selectively, and in this campaign both sides have been criticised for using misleading material, but the Leave camp, with their entirely bogus flagship claim about EU membership costing the UK £350m a week, seem to be setting a new precedent. It is almost as if they have looked at the success of Donald Trump, a one-man lie factory, and decided to road test quite how much dishonesty you can get away with in a British election. The results of the experiment, of course, remain to be seen.

If you want to get involved in the debate, you can comment BTL here, but it would be better if you could comment BTL on the debate blog.

Cable accuses Boris Johnson of presenting 'juvenile caricature' of single market

Sir Vince Cable, the former Lib Dem business secretary, has been giving a Remain speech in Bristol today on the importance of the single market. Here are the key points.

  • Cable accused Boris Johnson and others of promoting a “juvenile caricature” of the single market and failing to understand how it really works.

The juvenile caricatures flowing from the pens of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and others – the straight bananas, square strawberries and smaller condoms – aren’t just silly and fabricated; they miss the essential point that the single market reduces administrative barriers to trade. Any manufacturer knows that it is costly and inefficient to reproduce 28 versions of the same widget.

I saw the process of integration at work as secretary of state. When I talked to Siemens about their new investment making turbines for offshore wind in Hull they saw themselves as a European company operating within the single market.

When I talked to car companies about where they would build their next model- Nissan, General motors/Vauxhall, BMW/Mini, JLR or Ford making engines-a critical concern was their ability to be able to trade freely within the single market on common technical standards.

  • He said small businesses benefit from the single market, even if they do not directly export to the EU, because they supply big companies that do.
  • He said the single market was also important to people working in services.

You might respond that “ trade in cars and aerospace is all well and good, but our economy is 80% services”. The are however very porous boundaries between manufacturing and services. Crucial to the success of manufacturing is good software, design, advertising and other creative industries.

The EU helps these industries by eliminating non-tariff barriers. So it means an engineer or an architect can get off the plane in Munich or Madrid

The next stage of development of the Single Market aims to bring down the remaining barriers to trade in services, energy and digital.

  • He insisted that “red tape” was not much of a problem for British business.

We are sometimes told by the Brexiteers that if we left the EU we could have a bonfire of EU red tape. But there isn’t much left to burn. The evidence suggests that Britain has some of the least regulated product and labour markets in the world. And, of course, some regulation is essential to protect the environment, to protect consumers and to protect workers.

Sir Vince Cable at the Fabian Society conference earlier this month.
Sir Vince Cable at the Fabian Society conference earlier this month. Photograph: Richard Gardner/REX/Shutterstock

Vote Leave has responded to the today’s Brexit warning from the OECD. (See 11.06am.) This is from John Longworth, the former British Chambers of Commerce director general who is now chair of the Vote Leave Business Council.

The most important finding in today’s report is the acknowledgment that the UK economy will continue to grow after we vote to leave the EU.

But this is a flawed report, that makes assumptions which have been roundly dismissed by senior economists.

Instead of listening to partisan advisory bodies, let’s look at what businesses are actually telling us: that the costly red tape and regulations emanating from Brussels are constraining their ability to innovate and create jobs. If we Vote Leave on 23 June, we can change that.

In notes to the press release containing Longworth’s statement Vote Leave cites, as evidence of that the OECD is making “assumptions which have been roundly dismissed by economists”, this Independent article by Ashoka Mody, a former director at the International Monetary Fund, saying UK trade would not be affected if Britain left the EU.

ConservativeHome has today published its latest survey of Conservative party members on who they think should be the next party leader. For the third month in a row Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has come out top - even though he says he absolutely does not want the job.

Tory members’ poll on who should be next leader.
Tory members’ poll on who should be next leader. Photograph: ConservativeHome

Labour Leave, the Labour campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wants to run a newspaper advertising campaign promoting its cause. But it can’t afford to at the moment, so it is running a fundraising campaign (details here) to try to drum up some cash for the ads.

Brendan Chilton, Labour Leave’s general secretary, said:

The Remain campaign is bankrolled by big business money, but the Leave campaign doesn’t have anything like the same level of support.

The money we send every week to the EU could be better spent on our public services, such as the NHS. We need to get this message out, and that is why we need people’s support to run this advertising campaign.

Only a handful of Labour MPs are supporting Labour Leave. The party is backing Remain, and the party machine is supporting the Labour In for Britain campaign.

(Actually, Chilton is wrong about Leave not getting as much financial support as Remain. Figures covering all groups, not just Labour Leave, show Leave groups are getting considerably more financial support than Remain groups.)

Here is my colleague Larry Elliott’s story about today’s Brexit warning from the OECD.

Here’s how it starts.

Britain’s departure from the European Union poses as big a threat to the global economy as a “hard landing” in China, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has said.

The Paris-based thinktank said Brexit would have significant costs not just for the UK and Europe, but for the rest of the world. Catherine Mann, the chief economist at the OECD, said the uncertainty caused by the referendum came at a time when the global economy was caught in a low-growth trap.

“Spillovers could be significant to other countries,” Mann said, as she predicted that the world economy would grow by 3% in 2016 and by 3.3% in 2017 – forecasts that have remained unchanged since its last health check three months ago.

“We have done a lot of work on what a hard landing in China would mean. It is in the same ball park as Brexit.”

And here’s a comment from John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor. He said:

Today’s OECD report once again shows the absolute failure of the chancellor’s economic policy. Not only has productivity slumped, but the OECD also highlight the risk of further bubbles in the housing market whilst housebuilding continues at too low a level. Further proof that George Osborne’s recovery is built on sand.

With the OECD forecasting a dramatic shock to the whole economy from a Tory Brexit, it’s clear we can’t risk failed Tory economic policy any more. We need a serious commitment from this government to invest in infrastructure and housing, backed up by a real industrial strategy to place the economy on a sound foundation and build the high-tech, high-wage economy of the future.

John McDonnell.
John McDonnell. Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

Vote Leave's immigration plan would 'wreck our economy', say Britain Stronger in Europe

Britain Stronger in Europe have put out a briefing responding to the Vote Leave immigration proposals. Here are the main points they are making.

  • Britain Stronger in Europe say Vote Leave’s policy would involve the UK leaving the single market (because access to the single market depends upon allowing free movement to EU workers) and that this would “wreck the economy”.
  • They say Australia, whose points-based immigration system is the model for what Vote Leave are proposing, has double the number of migrants per head that the UK has.
  • They say Vote Leave also want to increase immigration from non-EU countries. For example, Boris Johnson said last year: “Current restrictions on overseas students are putting off the brightest Indian minds from coming to study in the capital and it is crazy that we should be losing India’s top talent and global leaders of the future to countries like Australia and the United States.”

Will Straw, BSE’s executive director, said:

This system will not work. Vote Leave’s proposal could put up immigration and it would wreck our economy, as it involves leaving Europe’s single market.

Farage says Ukip immigration policies have now become mainstream

Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, says he has been vindicated on immigration.

A points-based immigration system has been a flagship Ukip policy for some time now.

(Technically, of course, the UK already has a points-based system for non-EU immigration. Ukip, and now Vote Leave, are just proposing to extend the principle to EU migrants.)

Vote Leave publishes its proposals for points-based immigration system

Vote Leave have released a long statement with their proposals for an Australian-style, points-based immigration system. It is jointly signed by Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, and Gisela Stuart. Here is an extract from the key section.

First, there will be no change for Irish citizens. The right of Irish citizens to enter, reside and work in the UK is already enshrined in our law. This will be entirely unaffected by a vote to leave on 23 June.

As the Northern Ireland secretary has made clear, the common travel area that has existed since the creation of an independent Irish state will not be affected. There will be no change to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Second, there will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present.

Third, we will rapidly amend the European Communities Act 1972 to take back the power to remove criminals and other persons whose presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good. There are dangerous people living in the UK who we cannot currently remove because of EU law ...

Connected to this is the need immediately to end the application of the EU’s charter of fundamental rights to UK law. This charter gives the rogue European court practically unlimited powers to extend its jurisdiction. By ending its application in UK law, we will take back control of how Britain implements the crucial 1951 UN convention on refugees and end the charter’s ability to affect immigration and asylum law.

Fourth, by the next general election, we will create a genuine Australian-style points based immigration system. The automatic right of all EU citizens to come to live and work in the UK will end, as will EU control over vital aspects of our social security system. EU citizens will be subject to legislation made by those we elect in Westminster, not in Brussels. We could then create fairness between EU citizens and others, including those from Commonwealth countries.

Those seeking entry for work or study should be admitted on the basis of their skills without discrimination on the ground of nationality. To gain the right to work, economic migrants will have to be suitable for the job in question. For relevant jobs, we will be able to ensure that all those who come have the ability to speak good English. Such a system can be much less bureaucratic and much simpler than the existing system for non-EU citizens.

George Osborne, the chancellor, has responded to the OECD warnings. (See 9.38am.) In a statement issued by Britain Stronger in Europe he said:

While the Leave campaign indulges in the fantasy politics of uncosted and unworkable proposals, in the real world we have had today another wake up call of the grim economic consequences of leaving the EU and the single market.

The highly respected, independent OECD has significantly downgraded Britain’s growth today because of uncertainty about the outcome of the referendum, and they are clear that is just a taste of worse to come if Britain leaves the EU.

They say our economy would be hit for years to come, with GDP three per cent lower by 2020 and five per cent lower by 2030, and the impact on living standards would be strongly negative.

If we vote to Remain, however, and continue to take advantage of the free trade and investment that comes with membership of a reformed EU, the OECD is clear that the future is bright, with growth projected to rebound this year. This is a hugely significant and timely intervention.

George Osborne visiting a Crossrail construction site.
George Osborne visiting a Crossrail construction site. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AFP/Getty Images

OECD says Brexit would have 'substantial negative consequences' for UK and world economy

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said this morning Britain leaving the EU would have a “substantial” impact on the UK and global economy. And they don’t mean a positive impact. The Press Association has filed a story with more details.

Leaving the EU would have a “substantial” impact on the UK and global economy while also sparking turmoil in world stock markets, according to the OECD as it ramped up its warnings ahead of the referendum.

The OECD slashed its forecasts for the UK economy as it said Brexit fears have already “undermined” growth.

It added that Brexit would have significant impact on growth across Europe and rest of the world and trigger turbulence in financial markets.

In its latest economic outlook forecast, it said: “A decision to exit would result in considerable additional volatility in financial markets and an extended period of uncertainty about future policy developments, with substantial negative consequences for the United Kingdom, the European Union and the rest of the world.”

The OECD cut its forecast for UK growth this year to 1.7%, down from 2.2% predicted in February.

But this assumes a vote to remain in the EU, and the OECD reiterated Brexit warnings for growth following a report in April which said it would cost British workers the equivalent of a month’s pay by the end of the decade.

The OECD estimated in April that by 2020 GDP would be more than 3% down on what it would have been if Britain had remained in the EU - the equivalent of £2,200 per household at today’s prices ...

The group’s latest gloomy assessment also underlines its fears over the global economy, which it said would fail to see growth pick up this year, remaining at 3%, and only edge up slightly in 2017 to 3.3%.

“Eight years after the financial crisis, the recovery remains disappointingly weak,” it said.

It added: “The forthcoming UK referendum on EU membership has already raised uncertainty, and an exit would depress growth in Europe and elsewhere substantially.”

In the UK, the OECD said referendum uncertainty “has led to a significant slowdown in economic activity”.

“Business investment has contracted as businesses have put their spending decisions on hold and hiring intentions have weakened.”

As well as the TUC’s Frances O’Grady, the Today programme also interviewed Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT transport union. He said his union was opposed to EU membership because it did not think EU policies favoured workers. He told the programme:

What worries me about the debate about Europe is that everything’s about “we’d be worse off if we leave”, not better off if we stay in. And the reality is that we as a trade union have opposed being members of the EU since 1979 because we don’t think workers are benefiting from it, and what we’re seeing today with privatisations, with deregulations, the fact that you’ve got a situation where in France and Belgium as we speak workers are protesting because they’re under attack, where in Greece and Spain 50% of young people – 50% of young people – are unemployed - the EU isn’t working for us. It isn’t working for ordinary people.

This morning, in response to the Vote Leave plans for a points-based immigration system, Ryan Coetzee, director of strategy for Britain Stronger in Europe, posted this on Twitter.

Vote Leave claim this shows the Remain camp are out of touch. In a statement Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive, said:

The mask has slipped. David Cameron’s campaign strategist has shown just how out of touch the remain campaign is with his argument that “no policy on immigration is the right policy”. The prime minister and his chums have an utter disregard for ordinary people’s concerns over immigration. ‘Working families know that uncontrolled EU migration has driven down wages, increased hospital waiting lists and has made it more difficult to get their kids into good schools.

The only way to take back control of our borders, and introduce a fairer and more sensible immigration policy is to Vote Leave on 23 June.

Coetzee may be surprised to see himself described as “Cameron’s campaign strategist”. He was an adviser to Nick Clegg in the last parliament and was the Lib Dems’ director of strategy in the run up to the election.

Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive.
Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire.

The TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has been on the Today programme talking about the TUC’s report claiming that leaving the EU would be a “disaster” for British workers who would be £38 a week worse off outside the EU by 2030.

She dismissed the claim, repeatedly made by Leave campaigners, that they represent the interests of workers who have lost out most through mass immigration. She told the programme:

They’re not promising to reduce immigration at all; in fact, I think this whole debate is a big con. I don’t recall many of the prominent Leave campaigners standing up for the working poor when it came to the pay cap on six million public service workers, or indeed the cuts to working tax credits. So I think we take the idea that they’re champions of the working poor with a shovelful of salt.

Frances O’Grady.
Frances O’Grady. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

I’m handing over the live blog to Andrew Sparrow now, for the rest of the day’s action.

Thanks for reading and for your comments so far.

Vice News has today launched its fly-on-the-wall documentary tracking Jeremy Corbyn over several weeks. Press Association offers this snap review:

Jeremy Corbyn’s material for Prime Minister’s Questions is being leaked to the Conservatives by his own staff, the Labour leader’s senior aide has claimed.

In a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Corbyn also accused the BBC of being “obsessed with trying to damage the leadership” of the party.

Corbyn’s chief spokesman, Seumas Milne, said the internal leaks took place following weekly preparatory meetings for PMQs.

Speaking after one of the weekly parliamentary encounters between Corbyn and David Cameron, he said: “This time they did [know the questions] because it leaked. It leaked from that meeting.”

Jeremy Corbyn at an EU referendum campaign rally in Doncaster.
Jeremy Corbyn at an EU referendum campaign rally in Doncaster. Photograph: Ian Hinchliffe/REX/Shutterstock

The online documentary by Vice News followed Corbyn for a number of weeks as he attempted to steer the party through an antisemitism crisis and local elections night.

Labour lost 18 seats in the May elections, but the leader claimed the result proved the BBC had been overestimating how badly the party would perform:

The whole narrative, all day and all last night and all for the past month has been ‘Corbyn’s going to lose’, ‘Labour’s going to fail’, ‘Labour’s going to lose’, ‘Labour’s going to fail’.

There is not one story on any election anywhere in the UK that the BBC will not spin into a problem for me.

It is obsessive beyond belief, that they are obsessed with trying to damage the leadership of the Labour party and unfortunately there are people in the Labour party who play into that.

Cheering news for David Cameron as the 2016 “Twiplomacy” – it’s called that, don’t blame me – report puts him, or the @Number10gov account anyway, top of its list of most followed European leaders on Twitter.

Cameron’s personal account (@David_Cameron) also appears at number five in the list, compiled by PR firm Burson-Marsteller.

Gallingly, though, as Politico reports:

No EU head of state or government makes it into the top 10 most followed world leaders.

That list is topped by Barack Obama, with a Katy Perry-rivalling 75.2 million followers.

It might not be the clincher when deciding which box to cross on 23 June – although the future of the BBC in a potentially independent Scotland certainly did worry some in 2014 – but my colleague John Plunkett’s assessment of the EU’s contribution to what we watch on telly is certainly worth a read.

For the second day in a row – Tuesday’s policy announcement was cutting VAT on fuel bills – Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are trumpeting post-Brexit changes that aren’t actually, technically, given their current government roles, their call.

It’s a view several readers are sharing in the comments below:

User avatar for Shanajackson

I didn't realise vote leave were an elected government of the UK. They are not as far as I know, therefore who cares what they plan ? Even if we do leave, which I hope we do, I will not be voting for people like IDS, gove, lawson, farage in a UK general election. The only thing I have with any of these people is we all want to leave the EU, for very different reasons I imagine.

User avatar for CultureJudge

How can Vote Leave plan policy? All they are is a campaign group for a NO vote in a referendum. Yet they act like they're in a general election, throwing policy promises around. Absoutely disgraceful.

As reported in Tuesday’s live blog – bonus points for regular readers – hedge funds and investment banks are commissioning private exit polls for 23 June in order to speculate on sterling before the result of the referendum is officially known.

Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson says David Cameron should intervene:

Information about a historic vote that will shape the future of our continent should be made available to everyone at the same time, not shared among a privileged few whose only motive is to gain financially by attempting to predict the outcome.

I hope the government will put measures in place to prohibit this avaricious plan by financiers to benefit from information that belongs to every voter.

What does it all mean? I’m not sure any two-minute video could quite get to the bottom of this philosophical Brexit question, but it does have a good stab at explaining the ins and outs of the in or out vote to non-Brits (and to non-non-Brits too).

EU referendum: Brexit for non-Brits

How does Australia's points system work?

Australia’s points-based migration system, suggested in the past by Ukip and now by the Brexit campaigners, is another arm of the country’s infamous border control measures.

Skilled migrants made up about 68% of the 190,000 places in Australia’s 2014-2015 migration programme, which is separate from the humanitarian programme.

The migration programme controls the variety and numbers of workers moving to the country, and according to the department of immigration is “specifically designed to target migrants who have skills or outstanding abilities that will contribute to the Australian economy” and to fill labour shortages.

A range of Australian skilled visas require a points-based assessment for migrants to live and work in the country as a permanent resident.

Applicants must be under 50 years of age, although no points are given for those aged 45-49. An applicant aged between 25 and 32 has half the required 60 points already.

They must have at least competent English, but only proficient or superior English will gain any points.

The rest of the points needed to round out the 60 are based on minimum qualifications and employment histories – gained in Australia or overseas – or other factors including tertiary education and if your partner also fulfils requirements.

Someone can also gain points if they have previously worked in Australia or studied in a regional area or a metropolitan area with low population growth.

For some visa subclasses, sponsorship by an employer or family member, or nomination by a government is required.

If an applicant is not employer-sponsored the job must be on an approved occupation list, each with a cap on the number accepted. For the 2015-16 intake, Australia has already approved all the 1,000 available visas for auditors, company secretaries and corporate treasurers; the 1,788 industrial, mechanical and production engineers; and 1,000 other engineering professionals.

But if you are a (non-primary) school teacher, a vet or a cartographer, there are still thousands of places left.

Morning briefing

Good morning and welcome to the second day of the Guardian’s daily EU referendum coverage.

I’ll be launching the morning briefing to set you up for the day ahead and steering the live blog each morning until Andrew Sparrow takes his seat. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.

The big picture

Today sees Boris Johnson and Michael Gove for the first time setting out together on the Vote Leave battle bus. They’re heading to Preston and my colleague Rowena Mason is too: you can track her/their progress @rowenamason.

To mark the occasion, the Leave campaign has lobbed another immigration story into the morning papers: this one a pledge that after Brexit, European would-be migrants to the UK would be subject to “a genuine Australian-style points based immigration system” and be required to “have the ability to speak good English”.

This, Johnson, Gove and co-author Priti Patel say, would level the playing field for EU citizens and those seeking to come to the UK from Commonwealth countries. There would be a couple of key exceptions: Irish citizens would still be able to travel freely into the UK, and EU citizens already in the country would be granted indefinite leave.

In an interview with the Guardian, fellow Leave fan Chris Grayling said controlling immigration was key to enabling young people to afford to buy a home:

If we are bringing a population the size of Newcastle upon Tyne into the country every single year, if we cannot set limits on the number of people that come and work in Britain, then simple maths says it is going to be even more difficult to get on to the housing ladder.

Nigel Farage – who’ll be on the Ukip battle bus today, which is not the same as the Vote Leave battle bus because sometimes you just need your own bus – said he was “pleased that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove now support [the] same policy I’ve advocated for years”.

A glimpse into the future: Nigel Farage on his battle bus as it passes a fortune teller’s stall in Birmingham.
A glimpse into the future: Nigel Farage on his battle bus as it passes a fortune teller’s stall in Birmingham. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

But Will Straw, the executive director of Britain Stronger In Europe, insisted the plan would not work, saying Vote Leave was reading from the “Farage playbook”:

Australia, who have a points based immigration system, have twice as many migrants per head as the UK. Economic experts are agreed that leaving the single market would lead to recession – costing jobs and raising prices.

On which note, the TUC has labelled Brexit a “disaster” that would cost British workers their employment rights – and £38 a week. General secretary Frances O’Grady said:

£38 a week may not be much for politicians like Boris Johnson – a man who described his £250,000 fee for a weekly newspaper column as ‘chicken feed’. But for millions of workers, it’s the difference between heating or eating, between struggling or saving, and between getting by or getting on.

O’Grady said those campaigning for Britain to leave the EU were “phonies” who did not understand the challenges faced by workers:

It’s a bit like Iain Duncan Smith pretending to be the friend of the poor, when everyone knows he was the minister for food banks … Has Priti Patel ever struggled to pay the gas bill? I doubt it.

You should also know:

Poll position

Tuesday’s Guardian/ICM poll showing voters split 52%-48% in favour of Brexit is still reverberating this morning, including on the i front page.

As ICM’s director Martin Boon put it:

It is only one poll but, in a rather unexpected reverse of polling assumptions so far, both our phone poll and our online poll are consistent on both vote intentions and on the EU referendum.

Voters in Scotland were still more likely to vote for Remain.

ICM EU referendum polling

An Ipsos Mori poll of 4,000 people finds 56% believe investment in the UK from the EU will fall if Britain votes Leave, but 58% think their own standard of living will not be affected in the event of Brexit – a finding the Telegraph reports as “a blow to the assembled forces of Project Fear”.

Diary

  • At noon in Bristol, pro-Remainers Amber Rudd and Sir Vince Cable attend an EU event.
  • Eddie Izzard is in Edinburgh at 1pm on his Stand Up for Europe tour.
  • From 1.45pm, the Vote Leave bus goes to Preston with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove aboard.
  • Nigel Farage is on the Ukip battle bus in Leeds during the afternoon.
  • And this evening, Ken Livingstone addresses the Oxford Union.

Talking point

Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider, a 30-minute fly-on-the-wall documentary by Vice News, lands this morning amid reports that advisers had “tense discussions” over the decision to allow the film crew to follow him for several weeks.

In the film, according to a report in the Telegraph, Corbyn’s strategy chief Seumas Milne claims the Labour leader’s attack lines for PMQs are regularly leaked:

It is very annoying because it only happens about a third of the time but it obviously gives them [the government] a little bit of extra time.

Whenever there is a leak it gives them that advantage. It gives them the advantage on TV as well.

Jeremy Corbyn: oh, to be a fly on the wall/Vice News journalist.
Jeremy Corbyn: oh, to be a fly on the wall/Vice News journalist. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Read these

Daniel Finkelstein in the Times (paywall) argues that the lessons of the second world war form a strong argument to stay within the EU:

Boris Johnson and David Cameron have both been attacked for raising questions of war and peace in this campaign, as if nothing could be more hyperbolic and absurd. Yet debating Hitler and armed conflict in Europe could not be more apposite. To believe that the peace we have now in Europe is something we can rely on is incredibly complacent …

To have bound so many warring and scarred states into one strong alliance is a huge achievement. That these countries now share a close legal relationship is a better guarantee of safety than we have ever had.

Priti Patel, writing in the Sun, expands on the Leave campaign’s plan for a points-based immigration scheme:

The automatic right of all EU citizens to come to live, work and claim many benefits in the UK would end. We would choose who we allow into the country on the basis of their skills – without discrimination on the ground of nationality …

It would replace the current system, where anyone who lives in the EU – even if they have a criminal record – has the right to come to Britain.

That may not matter much to the corporate executives in the City, and it certainly doesn’t impact on the foreign politicians and big businessmen who seek to lecture us on how to vote. But it matters to the British people.

Baffling claim of the day

Leave.EU’s breathless tweet that the group “is excited to have learned about BPop Live, a concert organised by Brexit Live on 19 June!” It’s as if they hadn’t heard the kerfuffle about headliners 5ive and Alesha Dixon withdrawing from the event … or prominently endorsed the event on the BPop Live website. Still, Ritchie Neville or no Ritchie Neville, the site entices browsers to buy a ticket by providing zero information on who will be appearing.

Celebrity endorsement of the day

The Vicar of Dibley 2.jpg

YouGov – which apparently has too much time on its hands – asked its voting panel to judge which of 30 fictional characters would back Brexit and which would remain with Remain. The resounding result was that Geraldine Granger, the Vicar of Dibley, would be most stridently pro-EU, with The Royle Family’s Jim Royle the most enthusiastic Brexiter.

Bob the Builder, the panel concluded, would not yet have made his mind up. Anyone would think he hadn’t seen the latest UK construction figures.

The day in a tweet

If today were a defunct game show slogan ...

It would be “What do points make? Prizes!” Where the prize is a post-EU UK visa. Or you could play on for the nice family hatchback.

And another thing

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