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Project Fear becomes Project Lie..

Are you frightened out of your wits yet?

You probably should be, after more than a week of scare-mongering claims from the Remain camp about how Britain will fall into chaos, economic ruin and be overrun by illegal immigrants and terrorists within nano-seconds of a vote to Leave the European Union.

Oh, yes, and don't forget the plague of locusts and the fire and brimstone too.

These claims – widely predicted and getting more ludicrous by the day – have been dubbed "Project Fear" by Eurosceptics, who have rightly heaped scorn on the outlandish suggestion that Britain outside the EU will collapse into a black hole of obscurity and poverty.

But Project Fear is not just a cynical attack on our democracy, shutting down proper, healthy, informed debate about the real issues affecting the future of our country.

It's actually more sinister than that because Project Fear is not so much about stoking up the fears of the British people but about the willingness of many of our political leaders – and specifically the Prime Minister David Cameron – to lie to us.

Project Fear is a misnomer. It is actually Project Lie.

So what precisely is Mr Cameron lying about? It's hard to be sure but there are, just like the EU referendum ballot paper, two options.

The Prime Minister, after winning a handful of laughably insignificant reforms from his fellow EU leaders, is now happily leading the campaign to stay in the EU amid claims that a vote to leave would devastate the UK's future prosperity and security.

But hold on a minute, only a matter of a few months ago, didn't the Prime Minister publicly state to the British people that, if he failed to win the necessary reforms from the EU, he would campaign to leave?

Indeed, Mr Cameron promised just that in a number of TV interviews and in his speech at Chatham House last November.

"If we can't reach such an agreement," he said, "And if Britain's concerns were to be met with a deaf ear, which I do not believe will happen, then we will have to think again about whether this European Union is right for us. As I have said before – I rule nothing out."

Since there are only two options in an in-out referendum, then "ruling nothing out" can only mean one thing: that Mr Cameron was willing to campaign for a vote to leave the EU. So, that means he thought a Leave vote would be a better result for Britain than an EU with no reforms.

Indeed, he was very clear that the result of a vote to leave the EU would be anything but disastrous for Britain. In the very same Chatham House speech, he explained: "I am not saying for one moment that Britain couldn't survive outside the European Union. Of course we could… Whether we could be successful outside the European Union – that's not the question. The question is whether we would be more successful in than out?"

This is bizarre, given the terrible fate that he and his own ministers now insist awaits us if we do indeed walk away from the European Union. If the dangers of leaving are really so awful, why would he ever have risked choosing to campaign to leave? Or if leaving is not actually a terrible risk, why is he now claiming it is?

Indeed, why would he ever have promised an EU referendum at all? Surely, whatever the public clamour, no responsible Prime Minister should ever offer voters a choice between two options when he genuinely believes one of those choices to be cataclysmic for the country?

So what can we conclude from this?

Well, either David Cameron knows that all the Project Fear claims are blatant lies and he is happy for those lies to be told to the British people in a bid to win the referendum. Or he lied when he told the British people that he would campaign to leave the EU if he did not secure the reforms he wanted.

Either way, he has lied to us. Project Fear has morphed into Project Lie and barely anyone has so much as blinked an eye.

The British people deserve better than fear and lies: they deserve the truth.

Julia Hartley-Brewer 

Michael Gove will vote to leave..

For weeks now I have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of my political life. But taking difficult decisions is what politicians are paid to do. No-one is forced to stand for Parliament, no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities.

I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming Government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister. There is, as far as I can see, only one significant issue on which we have differed.

And that is the future of the UK in the European Union.

It pains me to have to disagree with the Prime Minister on any issue. My instinct is to support him through good times and bad.

But I cannot duck the choice which the Prime Minister has given every one of us. In a few months time we will all have the opportunity to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or leave. I believe our country would be freer, fairer and better off outside the EU. And if, at this moment of decision, I didn't say what I believe I would not be true to my convictions or my country.

I don't want to take anything away from the Prime Minister's dedicated efforts to get a better deal for Britain. He has negotiated with courage and tenacity. But I think Britain would be stronger outside the EU.

My starting point is simple. I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change. If power is to be used wisely, if we are to avoid corruption and complacency in high office, then the public must have the right to change laws and Governments at election time.

But our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives. Laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can't throw out. We can take out our anger on elected representatives in Westminster but whoever is in Government in London cannot remove or reduce VAT, cannot support a steel plant through troubled times, cannot build the houses we need where they're needed and cannot deport all the individuals who shouldn't be in this country. I believe that needs to change. And I believe that both the lessons of our past and the shape of the future make the case for change compelling.

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people. As a result of their efforts we developed, and exported to nations like the US, India, Canada and Australia a system of democratic self-government which has brought prosperity and peace to millions.

Our democracy stood the test of time. We showed the world what a free people could achieve if they were allowed to govern themselves.

In Britain we established trial by jury in the modern world, we set up the first free parliament, we ensured no-one could be arbitrarily detained at the behest of the Government, we forced our rulers to recognise they ruled by consent not by right, we led the world in abolishing slavery, we established free education for all, national insurance, the National Health Service and a national broadcaster respected across the world.

By way of contrast, the European Union, despite the undoubted idealism of its founders and the good intentions of so many leaders, has proved a failure on so many fronts. The euro has created economic misery for Europe's poorest people. European Union regulation has entrenched mass unemployment. EU immigration policies have encouraged people traffickers and brought desperate refugee camps to our borders.

Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU's policies have become a source of instability and insecurity. Razor wire once more criss-crosses the continent, historic tensions between nations such as Greece and Germany have resurfaced in ugly ways and the EU is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria. The former head of Interpol says the EU's internal borders policy is "like hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe" and Scandinavian nations which once prided themselves on their openness are now turning in on themselves.  All of these factors, combined with popular anger at the lack of political accountability, has encouraged extremism, to the extent that far-right parties are stronger across the continent than at any time since the 1930s.

The EU is an institution rooted in the past and is proving incapable of reforming to meet the big technological, demographic and economic challenges of our time. It was developed in the 1950s and 1960s and like other institutions which seemed modern then, from tower blocks to telexes, it is now hopelessly out of date. The EU tries to standardise and regulate rather than encourage diversity and innovation. It is an analogue union in a digital age.

The EU is built to keep power and control with the elites rather than the people. Even though we are outside the euro we are still subject to an unelected EU commission which is generating new laws every day and an unaccountable European Court in Luxembourg which is extending its reach every week, increasingly using the Charter of Fundamental Rights which in many ways gives the EU more power and reach than ever before. This growing EU bureaucracy holds us back in every area. EU rules dictate everything from the maximum size of containers in which olive oil may be sold (five litres) to the distance houses have to be from heathland to prevent cats chasing birds (five kilometres).

Individually these rules may be comical. Collectively, and there are tens of thousands of them, they are inimical to creativity, growth and progress. Rules like the EU clinical trials directive have slowed down the creation of new drugs to cure terrible diseases and ECJ judgements on data protection issues hobble the growth of internet companies. As a minister I've seen hundreds of new EU rules cross my desk, none of which were requested by the UK Parliament, none of which I or any other British politician could alter in any way and none of which made us freer, richer or fairer.

It is hard to overstate the degree to which the EU is a constraint on ministers' ability to do the things they were elected to do, or to use their judgment about the right course of action for the people of this country. I have long had concerns about our membership of the EU but the experience of Government has only deepened my conviction that we need change. Every single day, every single minister is told: 'Yes Minister, I understand, but I'm afraid that's against EU rules'. I know it. My colleagues in government know it. And the British people ought to know it too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas that matter.

But by leaving the EU we can take control. Indeed we can show the rest of Europe the way to flourish. Instead of grumbling and complaining about the things we can't change and growing resentful and bitter, we can shape an optimistic, forward-looking and genuinely internationalist alternative to the path the EU is going down. We can show leadership. Like the Americans who declared their independence and never looked back, we can become an exemplar of what an inclusive, open and innovative democracy can achieve.

We can take back the billions we give to the EU, the money which is squandered on grand parliamentary buildings and bureaucratic follies, and invest it in science and technology, schools and apprenticeships. We can get rid of the regulations which big business uses to crush competition and instead support new start-up businesses and creative talent. We can forge trade deals and partnerships with nations across the globe, helping developing countries to grow and benefiting from faster and better access to new markets.

We are the world's fifth largest economy, with the best armed forces of any nation, more Nobel Prizes than any European country and more world-leading universities than any European country. Our economy is more dynamic than the Eurozone, we have the most attractive capital city on the globe, the greatest "soft power" and global influence of any state and a leadership role in NATO and the UN. Are we really too small, too weak and too powerless to make a success of self-rule? On the contrary, the reason the EU's bureaucrats oppose us leaving is they fear that our success outside will only underline the scale of their failure.

This chance may never come again in our lifetimes, which is why I will be true to my principles and take the opportunity this referendum provides to leave an EU mired in the past and embrace a better future.

Michael Gove MP

Telegraph Morning Briefing..

Can we trust MPs to police themselves? The Commons Committee on Standards, composed mostly of MPs, decided on Thursday to clear that Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind over a "cash for access" revealed by the Telegraph, and now some of its members have expressed major doubts about the rules. This comes after our reporters, working with Channel Four's Dispatches programme, found that both Parliamentarians were offering to use their positions on behalf of a fictitious Chinese company in return for payments of at least £5,000 per day. Despite this, Parliament's Standards Commissioner Kathryn Hudson found that "there was no breach of the rules on paid lobbying" after accepting assurances from Sir Malcolm and Mr Straw that they were speaking "off the cuff" and were not intending to back up their words in meetings with actual actions. The Standards Committee in turn issued a thinly-veiled threat to journalists not to carry out such investigations in future, promising to "consider further the role of the press in furthering … understanding and detecting wrongdoing." Can the public trust a regime where MPs are effectively marking their own homework? They now need a sensible outside watchdog. "The sorry tale of Sir Malcolm and Mr Straw and the standards committee's shameful response prove beyond doubt that MPs cannot be trusted to regulate themselves over lobbying," we say.

"Obviously the system is flawed...the House of Commons is incapable of regulating itself." Martin Bell

News If At First You Don't Secede... David Cameron today marked the first anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum by urging Nicola Sturgeon to "move on" and stop obsessing about breaking up the UK. This comes as Alex Salmond boasted to the Independent that the pro-independence side "would win" if there was another referendum. "One feels for the Prime Minister: he has enough battles to fight," Fraser Nelson writes in today's paper. "But the battle for Scotland is still very much one of them."   PM: #JezHeCan't Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will get "nowhere near power", David Cameron has claimed. Michael Deacon was struck by the Prime Minister's "thumpingly frank" remarks, which did not mention Corbyn by name. "The Tory plan is...to make Mr Corbyn and the entire Labour party synonymous, so that Mr Corbyn's successors will be damaged by him too," he adds. This comes as members of the Privy Council have warned Jeremy Corbyn that he will "embarrass" the Queen if he fails to kneel when he joins next month. Owen Paterson told Chris Hope: "He should grow up or go back to the back benches and play around like some sort of bearded activist." Dan Hodges sympathises with Corbyn, writing: "Let's not force him to his knees...let him keep his self-respect."   Taxing Questions Jean-Claude Juncker has denied any role in designing the corporate tax system of Luxembourg, a country he governed for two decades, which is said to have helped multinational companies cut billions from their tax bills.   McDonnell Sorry After IRA Ire John McDonnell, Labour's shadow chancellor, has been forced to apologise "from the bottom of his heart" for saying the IRA should be honoured but faced criticism for attempting to "justify" his remarks by saving they helped to save lives.   Red Mist Labour MP Jess Phillips has apologised after telling Diane Abbott to "f**k off" during a heated row about a lack of women in the top shadow cabinet jobs. Asked by HuffPostUK's Owen Bennett (no relation) what Ms Abbott did after her blunt request, she replied: "She f**ked off".   I Came, I Saw, iPlayered The BBC should ensure that people are able to use the iPlayer when they travel abroad, John Whittingdale has said.    Spy Hard The head of MI5 has launched an unprecedented attack on social media companies, saying they have a "responsibility" to pass on intelligence of potential terrorism, Tom Whitehead has more.

Tweet of the day

"I'm just going to keep telling @JeremyCorbyn he's for Scottish independence until he starts saying it too. #SexySocialism" @AngrySalmond

Stats of the day

£5,000 How much Rifkind and Straw wanted per day to use their positions for a fake Chinese firm £67,060 Their annual salary as MPs

More stats & analysis from our Politics team

Comment

From The Telegraph   Fraser Nelson - Cameron must wake up – the battle for Scotland, and the Union, is still being fought   Jeremy Warner - More firms are about to go bust - and that's a good thing   Liam Fox - London mustn't have a veto on Heathrow

From Politics Comment   Sophy Ridge - Meet the next leader of the Labour party (sorry Jeremy Corbyn)   Kate Andrews - Donald Trump slumped in the Republican presidential debate, and yet he still won   Glyn Gaskarth - Poor people need more bobbies on the beat   Julia Hartley-Brewer - Why should I pay for Jeremy Corbyn's friend Claire to have so many children?

From Elsewhere   Andrew Marr - Between revolution and reform: the challenge facing Jeremy Corbyn   Lord Ashcroft - Corbyn is doing the job as he understands it – and as his supporters intended   Isabel Hardman - Grumpy People

Agenda

Today - First anniversary of Scottish Independence referendum/John Kerry begins three-day visit to London to meet Philip Hammond   Also - "The World Goes Pop" exhibition on at Tate Modern/Rugby World Cup begins with England v Fiji at Twickenham   09.05 - Nick Clegg MP speaks at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge   11.00 - Prime Minister David Cameron holds discussions with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades   20.00 BBC Radio 4 - 'Any Questions?', with guests Deputy Leader of the House of Commons Therese Coffey, Labour MP Tristram Hunt, Owen Jones and Allison Pearson   Tomorrow - Lib Dem Autumn Conference begins