Press Release 8/02/01

The new Mori poll finds:

1. 50% would vote to leave the European Union if they could be assured that our free trade with the EU would continue even if we left it. 13% were "don't knows" and only 37% would vote to stay in.

2. 60% would vote to leave the EU if the UK was forced to give up the pound in order to stay in the EU. 10% were "don't knows", and only 30% would vote to stay in the EU.

(37% say they would vote to leave now anyway and a further 23% say they would vote to leave if the UK was forced to give up the pound.)

3. 84% felt that politicians have not given out enough information to let the public decide whether the UK should remain in the EU or not. 7% were "don’t knows" and only 9% felt that our politicians have given out enough information to let the people decide this vital question.

Both Frits Bolkestein, EU Commissioner for the EU Internal Market, and EU Commissioner Neil Kinnock agreed on the Today Programme on 1^st February that our free trade with the EU would indeed continue if we left. Mr Kinnock confirmed: "there certainly wouldn't be any retaliation by our fellow democracies".

Lord Pearson of Rannoch said: "One of the biggest misconceptions in the debate about ‘Europe’ is that most businessmen think we need to stay in the EU to keep our free trade with it. When they appreciate that they could keep their free trade with the Single Market and yet not suffer any of the red tape and corruption from Brussels, of course they want to leave the EU.

Even Mexico has just signed a free trade agreement with the EU, which also has FTAs with Switzerland, Norway and several other countries. But the EU trades in surplus with us, and therefore needs our free trade much more than the trade of those other countries. In fact we are by far the EU's most important trading partner.

The finding that 84% feel they haven't been given enough facts to let them decide whether we should stay in or get out of the EU is not surprising, because there hasn't been any national debate about it. All our leading politicians and the media have been pretending for 20 years that membership of the EU is vital to the national interest. The British people rightly do not believe them and so it’s high time we had a full and fair debate."