UK Euromyths Statistics

It is interesting to see the sheer number of myths that have been peddled by the British media and interesting too that the EU has a myth rebuttal website!

Here are the fascinating statistics on the number of myths per year – it has been going on for a long, long time. Boris Johnson has had a significant role both as journalist and politician in peddling lies about European regulation (some of which, we should note, are actually WTO regulations)…

Towards the end there has been a significant increase around the time of the coalition where the LibDems would not permit a referendum and of course when the unrestrained Cameron Conservatives were elected in 2015.

It couldn’t be that the media had some sort of agenda could it?

Comments

    1. Sean Danaher -

      Yes it is another ‘fact’ my zealot of a Brexiter brother in law uses. Christmas will be a Brexit free argument zone!

  1. Andrew -

    One has to assume that most of these stories were published either knowing that they were false, or not caring whether they were true or not. In that much-overused expression, fake news. And it can work, of course. The drip drip drip of falsehoods over decades is poisonous.

    A little like the bugbear of “health and safety gone mad” – aligned with the idea that business is held back by unnecessary “red tape”, when the reduction of workplace accidents and injuries is actually one of the triumph of proper regulation, and you could add consumer protection such as proper food labelling to that pile.

    Or indeed the vitriol directed at “political correctness” – because who wants a measured, respectful, inclusive dialogue; it is much easier if we just let the racist, sexist, homophobic reactionary bigots self-identify through their “plain speaking”.

  2. Ivan Horrocks -

    Interesting that there’s such a spike for 1993 – 95, Peter. And I assume the almost complete disapearance of myths in 1997 was because the UK press was concentrating on the election – when it was pretty certain the Tories were out – and its aftermath, By the following year it was back to something like normal. Regarding Johnson, he is indeed our equivalent of Donald Trump in terms of his willingness to lie, though not of course in the same league as Trump (could anyone be?), who in the weeks running up to the midterm elections lied at a rate that exceeded his entire catalogue of lies for the previous year. Still, whereas Trump cannot help himself, Johnson can and so his lies are targetted and thus often far more damaging.

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