Let's make June 23rd our independence day

Over the past few months I've walked miles, delivered thousands of leaflets to thousands of homes, stood out in the rain and the sunshine talking to passers by, handed out leaflets and discovered parts of my town I didn't even know existed. All to try and give people the facts they need to make the right decision in tomorrow's EU referendum.

Twenty years ago I was on the other side - a Labour voter who supported the EU, supported mass immigration and thought the UK should join the €uro. A healthy dose of real life helped me to see sense and I've been firmly in the leave camp for a long time.

We are the world's 5th largest economy, the EU's largest export market, the world's 5th strongest military power, one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the centre of world finance. We may be small in size but we are a global economy, military and trading power.

We will not just survive but thrive outside of the EU. Our future is not shackled to a rapidly declining, bankrupt economic and political bloc but looking to the rest of the world, tapping into emerging markets and regaining our place as a global trading nation.

Don't be fooled by snake oil salesmen telling you that we can reform the EU from within, it is unreformable. Don't listen to the wormtongues telling you that we're not good enough to make it on our own. This is our one and only chance to get out of the EU and regain our freedom. I urge you to take this once in a lifetime opportunity and vote Leave and make 23rd June our independence day.

Jean-Claude Juncker says the UK will get no more changes to how the EU works

The unelected president of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has announced that there will be no further renegotiation of the UK's relationship with the EU if we vote to stay in.

The British policy makers and British voters have to know that there will not be any kind of renegotiation.

We have concluded a deal with the prime minister, he got the maximum he could receive, we gave the maximum we could give.

So there will be no kind of renegotiation, nor on the agreement we found in February, nor as far as any kind of treaty negotiations are concerned.

David Cameron is still telling the public that voting to stay in the EU will give him a mandate to keep on negotiating with the EU, making references to the things he said he was going to make them agree to but didn't. This statement from Jean-Claude Juncker nips that neatly in the bud. There will be no more change other than what has been agreed in the illegal, non-binding memorandum that was published back in February and no treaty change to make it legal and binding.

EU accelerating Turkey's EU membership application next Thursday

The EU is opening a new chapter in Turkey's membership application next week.

A UK spokesman in Brussels told Associated Free Press:

In March, all member states agreed to open Chapter 33, during the Netherlands (six-month EU) presidency. This is a technical step to implement that agreement.

David Cameron has been one of the most vocal supporters of Turkey's EU membership application and there is even a dedicated team at the British embassy in Ankara to help Turkey join the EU.

Two more multi-millionaires living abroad say we should stay in the EU

The mad cows at the BSE campaign have rolled out their latest intellectual heavyweights to add to their argument for staying in the EU - the Beckhams.

David and Victoria Beckham - worth £430m and living in Los Angeles - say they are "passionate" about the UK staying in the EU. But not passionate enough to live here, of course.

The Beckhams haven't always been pro-EU though. Back in the 90s when they were still actually living here and weren't quite so insulated from the insanity of life in the United States of Europe, Victoria Beckham said that "euro bureaucrats are destroying every bit of national identity and individuality".

WW2 veterans sign letter asking voters "please don't give away everything we fought for"

A group of World War 2 veterans met Tory minister Priti Patel yesterday to plead with voters to vote to leave the EU.

A letter signed by the veterans says:

We never imagined 71 years ago that our country would be in this position.

60 per cent of our laws are now made by faceless Brussels bureaucrats who are unelected, and the expanding EU military tells us that this is far more than just a trade bloc.

Before you the British People cast your vote in the referendum on Thursday, we want you to know, that’s not what we fought for!

Can you imagine how upsetting it is to us veterans that today we see our own politicians, and indeed our own Prime Minister, misleading the British people to keep us in the European Union?

The EU is not democratic, and indeed the whole of Europe which we liberated together with our Allies during the Second World War, needs to know that.

We plead with you. Please don’t give away everything we fought for. Please give your vote to our great country on Thursday.

Aston Martin says Brexit will help UK exports

The Chief Executive of Aston Martin has written to staff telling them that the UK leaving the EU would make them more competitive and increase exports.

Andy Palmer sent the memo to Aston Martin's 1,800 staff telling them that how they vote is a personal decision but that he is confident that the short term slowdown in GDP growth that is to be expected from Brexit would help UK exports.

If the Remainiacs are right and the Germans will stop selling cars to their largest export market when we leave we might all end up having to drive Aston Martin's. That would be terrible ... said nobody, ever.

Project Fear make it personal

Project Fear are spending the last few days of campaigning making things personal, appealing to voters not to support Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson or the Tories or UKIP or "right wingers" or "millionaires". They seem to be forgetting that this is a referendum, not an election.

This referendum is to decide whether we leave the EU or not. It's not to decide who is in government, who the prime minister is, whether money gets spent on the NHS, etc. To continue implying that it is with misleading headlines in the press is dishonest and reeks of desperation.

One of the favourite tactics of the Remainiacs at the moment is to try and undermine Vote Leave's argument that the millions we spend on the EU could go into the NHS instead. The Remainiacs tell voters that you can't trust the Tories with the NHS and you can't trust UKIP with the NHS and repeat the lie that Nigel Farage wants to privatise the NHS (UKIP was the only party with a costed plan for increasing NHS spending in the last election but that's not really important) and say you can't trust these people to invest in the NHS. The referendum won't put or keep any of those people in power or whether the money goes to the NHS, it's about leaving the EU.

The Remainiacs are constantly making personal attacks on the Leave campaign, saying they have no plans for where the money we save is going to spent and can't guarantee that it'll be spent on the NHS or supporting our elderly and homeless. Of course they don't have such plans and can't make these guarantees because the referendum is to decide whether we leave the EU, not what the government does. It will be down to the British government to decide where the billions we save will be spent, not the Leave campaign.

On Thursday we will vote on the simple question of whether we want to remain in the EU or leave the EU. David Cameron will no longer be prime minister regardless of the result, George Osborne will no longer be Chancellor. The fact that they will be gone is a bonus but has no bearing on how people vote. It's not an election, we're not choosing a prime minister or who forms a government, we're just deciding on whether or not we leave the EU. It's not about whether you like UKIP or the Tories or Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson, it's about whether or not we leave the EU. It's not about whether you believe that the people behind the leave campaign would spend money on the NHS, it's about whether or not we leave the EU. Don't be distracted by irrelevant personal attacks, just stick to the facts and make the right decision for you on Thursday.

Project Fear make it personal

Project Fear are spending the last few days of campaigning making things personal, appealing to voters not to support Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson or the Tories or UKIP or "right wingers" or "millionaires". They seem to be forgetting that this is a referendum, not an election.

This referendum is to decide whether we leave the EU or not. It's not to decide who is in government, who the prime minister is, whether money gets spent on the NHS, etc. To continue implying that it is with misleading headlines in the press is dishonest and reeks of desperation.

One of the favourite tactics of the Remainiacs at the moment is to try and undermine Vote Leave's argument that the millions we spend on the EU could go into the NHS instead. The Remainiacs tell voters that you can't trust the Tories with the NHS and you can't trust UKIP with the NHS and repeat the lie that Nigel Farage wants to privatise the NHS (UKIP was the only party with a costed plan for increasing NHS spending in the last election but that's not really important) and say you can't trust these people to invest in the NHS. The referendum won't put or keep any of those people in power or whether the money goes to the NHS, it's about leaving the EU.

The Remainiacs are constantly making personal attacks on the Leave campaign, saying they have no plans for where the money we save is going to spent and can't guarantee that it'll be spent on the NHS or supporting our elderly and homeless. Of course they don't have such plans and can't make these guarantees because the referendum is to decide whether we leave the EU, not what the government does. It will be down to the British government to decide where the billions we save will be spent, not the Leave campaign.

On Thursday we will vote on the simple question of whether we want to remain in the EU or leave the EU. David Cameron will no longer be prime minister regardless of the result, George Osborne will no longer be Chancellor. The fact that they will be gone is a bonus but has no bearing on how people vote. It's not an election, we're not choosing a prime minister or who forms a government, we're just deciding on whether or not we leave the EU. It's not about whether you like UKIP or the Tories or Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson, it's about whether or not we leave the EU. It's not about whether you believe that the people behind the leave campaign would spend money on the NHS, it's about whether or not we leave the EU. Don't be distracted by irrelevant personal attacks, just stick to the facts and make the right decision for you on Thursday.

Nissan's legal action against Vote Leave is being exaggerated and misrepresented by the Remain campaign

The Remainiacs - the media included - are reporting that Nissan is suing Vote Leave for claiming that they support Brexit in referendum leaflets. This isn't true.

Vote Leave hasn't claimed that Nissan is supporting Brexit, merely that Nissan has said it will continue to invest in the UK regardless of the result of the referendum. Nissan's stated position is that they support neither campaign, would prefer us to stay in but will not be reducing their investment in the UK when we vote to leave the EU. They have said that they will have to consider future investments on a case by case basis.

Here is the part of the leaflet they have a problem with:

It doesn't say or imply that Nissan supports Brexit, merely that they are one of the many companies who have said that they will stay. Which they have.

We are a global business with a strong presence in Europe. We have a rich heritage in the UK with 30 years of manufacturing and engineering presence, and remain committed to building and engineering cars in the country.

[...]

While we remain committed to our existing investment decisions, we will not speculate on the outcome nor what would happen in either scenario.

Furthermore, Nissan is not suing Vote Leave in the commonly understood meaning of the term, they are seeking a High Court injunction to prevent Vote Leave from using their name and logo without their permission and from (in their opinion) misrepresenting Nissan's position. Whether Vote Leave has a right to use Nissan's name and logo to illustrate the fact that Nissan won't be leaving the UK if we vote to leave the EU is for a judge to decide but such use of names and logos in political leaflets during an election are generally considered fair use so it's hard to see why this wouldn't be. There are specific exclusions in UK copyright and trademark law for reporting news and who could argue that this leaflet isn't reporting the news that Nissan (amongst others) has said that they will stay in the UK when we leave the EU?

Nissan say that they have asked Vote Leave to stop using their name and logo but they have continued to do so. This is similar to NHS England who told Vote Leave to stop using the NHS logo on their leaflets. Vote Leave stopped printing leaflets with the NHS logo but the leaflets that have already been distributed are out of Vote Leave's hands. I know for a fact that they are still being delivered by people who don't work for Vote Leave months after printing of that version of the leaflet was stopped. No doubt that is the case with this leaflet that was printed some time ago.

If Nissan has asked Vote Leave to stop using their name and logo then of course Vote Leave should respect their wishes unless they believe that doing so is fair use. If companies were allowed to prevent their names and logos being used when reporting news that would allow them to suppress any bad news coverage which is clearly not in the public interest.

The case is a frivolous one in any case as they aren't seeking a hearing until Monday when the referendum will be over and the company behind Vote Leave will have already started winding itself up. The timing of the announcement - four months after Nissan say they asked Vote Leave to stop using their name and logo and three days before the referendum date - is suspicious to say the least and is most likely a Remain campaign stunt to try and discredit the Leave the campaign.

Baroness Warsi hasn't "defected", she's never been a Leave campaigner

The pro-EU press are claiming Baroness Warsi has "defected" from the Leave campaign to Remain.

Baroness Warsi has not been part of the Leave campaign, refused to get involved with the Remain campaign when invited to and has not campaigned for Leave in any capacity. She has merely made her intention to campaign to stay in the EU public.

Who supports Brexit?

Everyone must have seen the various graphics on social media from Remainiacs trying to suggest that the Leave campaign is supported only by disgruntled Tories in their 50s, racists and despots whilst the Remain campaign is supported by young and dynamic people, world leaders and the enlightened and educated intelligentsia. UKIP MEP Jonathan Arnott has put together his own list just to show how easily these things are manipulated.

Who supports Brexit? A quick list...

• Dyson
• JCB
• The State Bank of India
• Trade unions RMT, Aslef and the Bakers Union
• Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey
• Tim Martin / Wetherspoons
• John Longworth (suspended as Director General of British Chamber of Commerce for supporting Brexit)
• Senior politicians in Switzerland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand and the USA
• Five Cabinet Ministers
• The whole of UKIP
• One of the Green Party's three members of the House of Lords
• The Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland)
• Almost half of all Conservative MPs
• Some Labour MPs
• Julian Thompson (Major General, Royal Marines)
• The head of the world's largest sovereign wealth fund
• Ronald Noble (Former Head of Interpol)
• Lord Owen (Former SDP leader & Labour Foreign Minister)
• Rocco Forte (Forte Hotels)
• Mark Littlewood (Director General of the Institute for Economic Affairs)
• Cancer researcher Professor Gus Dalgleish
• Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6

Who supports remaining in the EU? A quick list...

• A convicted terrorist who is now an elected politician for Sinn Fein
• Banks Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, responsible for the financial crisis
• Disgraced and jailed former Europe Minister Denis MacShane
• Abu Hamza
• George Osborne 
• David Cameron
• Angela Merkel
• Unelected EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
• Various organisations which have been leaned on by Downing Street and the European Commission

Field Marshall Lord Guthrie switches from Remain to Leave

The former head of the army, Field Marshall Lord Guthrie, has switched from supporting the Remain campaign to the Leave campaign.

Lord Guthrie says that it was a mistake to sign a government letter supporting the EU a few weeks ago and that the risk of an EU army is too high. The British government claims that we will never join an EU army but just last month joint EU military manoeuvres were held on Salisbuy plain with the EU flag on every vehicle and uniform and German plans for an EU army headquartered in Germany were leaked last month.

There is no investor panic over Brexit

The Remainiacs are trying to spin a slight devaluation in the value of the pound as investors losing confidence in a post-Brexit UK but as usual they're wrong.

Currency speculation is a high volume, short term investment. Traders are expecting a short term devaluation of the pound in the immediate aftermath of the referendum and they will welcome it. Trading currency is like trading anything else - buy your product as cheap as you can and sell it for as much as you can. They are dumping their sterling investments to help drive devaluation and once the referendum is over and the pound reaches the price they want they will buy it back at rock bottom prices and sell it on when it bounces back. It's not investor panic, it's how the markets work.

If you're looking for an indication of investor confidence then you need to look at the bond market. Bonds are basically loans given by investors to companies, governments and other organisations. The yield on a bond is the amount of profit the investor can expect to make when the bond matures and the issuer buys it back off you. The higher the yield demanded, the less confidence investors have in the ability of the issuer to pay. It's exactly the same principal as taking out a bank loan - the higher the risk of you not paying back your loan, the higher rate of interest the lender applies to the loan to cover their expected losses. If Greece was looking for a high street loan they'd be turning to the likes of Wonga, not Barclays.

A 10 year Greek government bond is attracting an 8.2% yield at the moment. Compare that to 1.6% for the US and 3% for China and you can see that investors have a lot less confidence in Greece's ability to buy back the bonds that they're issuing at the agreed price. 10 year UK government bonds are trading with a 1.146% yield today. That means investors have more confidence in the ability of the UK to buy back that bond in 10 years' time than they do in the United States to buy back theirs. UK government 5 year bonds are attracting a yield of 0.726% today compared to 1.38% for US government 5 year bonds. UK government 2 year bonds are attracting a yield of 0.38% compared to 0.88% for US government 2 year bonds. Investors aren't panicking about Brexit, they are expecting stability even in the short term.

George Osborne threatens to put up taxes and cut the NHS as punishment for leaving the EU

George Osborne has threatened a punishment budget for leaving the EU if he is still Chancellor after next week.

He has threatened to:

• Put up income tax by 2p (or 3p on the higher rate)
• Put up inheritance tax by 5%
• Put up fuel duty by 5p
• Put up alcohol duty by 5p
• Cut £2.5bn from the NHS budget
• Cut £1.2bn from the defence budget
• Cut £1.15bn from the education budget
• Cut £2bn from the pensions budget
• Cut the transport budget by 5%
• Cut the police budget by 5%

The foreign aid budget would be protected under his punishment budget.

George Osborne might have survived the referendum if he kept his head down but this will be the final nail in the coffin of his inglorious career.

New chapter in Turkey's EU membership application will be opened the day after the referendum

The British government have dropped opposition to opening a new chapter in Turkey's EU membership application the day after our referendum.

Fifteen of the 35 accession chapters have already been opened and one has been closed. Accelerating Turkey's membership application, a £2.2bn bung and granting Turkey visa-free travel were conditions of the EU's deal with Turkey that should have resulted in a crackdown on illegal immigration into Europe from Turkey. They have missed all the targets that were agreed but in the face of threats to stop what controls they have put in place the EU has rolled over and agreed to comply with the Turkish blackmail.

The UK's opposition to opening this new chapter in Turkey's EU membership application lasted for mere hours before they caved in.

David Cameron has been one of the most vocal supporters of Turkey's membership of the EU and leaked papers have shown that despite his recent volte face in public on the issue there is a team of British diplomats in Ankara dedicated to helping Turkey meet the requirements for EU membership.

Once voting is over next week, 75m Turks will be given visa-free travel in the EU despite an EU Commission report admitting that it will result in Turkish-based terrorists and organised crime gangs expanding into Europe.

The Sun comes out for Brexit

If you listen very carefully you can hear the fat lady warming up ready to burst into song ...

Conservative Party donor cancels membership over Cameron's threat to pensions

One of the Conservative Party's big donors has withdrawn his support for the Conservatives after David Cameron threatened to abolish the legal mechanism that increase the state pension by 2.5%, inflation or average earnings, whichever is higher.

The Conservative manifesto pledged to maintain the so-called "triple lock" on pensions until at least 2020 but last week David Cameron warned that he would abolish it when we leave the EU.

Venture capitalist, Edi Truell, has donated £270k to the Conservatives since 2010 but has cancelled his membership after David Cameron's pension threat. He has said that he will not support the Conservatives again until David Cameron is gone.

BT deleted results of poll showing 80% of their 20,000 users want to leave the EU

A couple of days ago an article appeared on the BT.com website reporting that 4 out of 5 of their 20,000 users intended to vote to leave the EU.

Yesterday the link disappeared from the website if you visited from the UK but remained on the site if you visited from the EU. Even if you clicked on the link in the EU, the article had been removed.

InvestmentWatch suggests that BT were leaned on by the British government or the EU to remove the article but the order is more likely to have come from closer to home: the Chief Executive of BT is a signatory on one of the Remain campaign's letters from big business telling us to vote to stay in the EU.

Sir James Dyson backs Leave

Sir James Dyson is backing the campaign to leave the EU and said that the idea that the EU will stop trading with us when we leave is "cobblers".

The billionaire inventor says that the EU sells us twice as much as we sell them with the deficit running at about £100bn a year and if the EU decided to impose 10% tariffs on UK exports we could do the same, raising an additional £10bn of revenue for the Treasury.

Dyson is critical of the British government's racist immigration policy which discriminates against non-EU workers. Because it's impossible to control the number of people who come here from the EU, the British government's only option other than leaving the EU is to put harsh restrictions on non-EU immigration in an attempt to drive down numbers. Dyson says this means it takes four and a half months to bring in a skilled foreign worker from outside the EU but you have no problem hiring a low paid barista from the EU.

The mad cows at the BSE campaign said "James Dyson wanted the UK to join the Euro. He was wrong then and he is wrong now". So by extension that must mean the Remain campaign's big backers who all campaigned to join the €uro are also wrong.

New opinion poll puts Leave 10% ahead of Project Fear

An opinion poll by ORB for the Independent released this evening puts Leave 10% ahead of Remain with undecided excluded.

This is only one poll so don't go down to the bookies and put your life savings on Brexit just yet but a 10% lead in the polls the day before the referendum would wipe out the polling day swing and put Leave on the front foot.

The Scottish independence referendum is the closest we have to a modern-day precedent for the EU referendum and that saw a massive 11% swing from Yes to No in the final 24 hours. Polling in the days before the Scottish referendum put Yes about 2% ahead of No but when it came to the vote No won by 9%. That was a big swing but there was more at stake in the Scottish referendum than there is in the EU referendum.

A change of citizenship, a national debt, the end of the Barnett Formula subsidy and declining oil prices blowing a hole in the Scottish government's economic plans made Scottish independence a risky economic proposition as well as a big cultural change. We're not culturally European, we're not invested in the EU superstate and the economic case for staying in just isn't credible. Leaving the EU has a lower risk profile and that will probably translate into a smaller swing. My feeling is that the voting day swing will be about 8% so a 10% lead in the polls should deliver a 2% majority for Leave but as I said, this is just one poll so keep the champagne on ice for now.