I AM glad that Joe Parker (HAS Aug 31) agrees with me that the promise of £350m for the NHS was a lie, and I agree with him that freedom of movement within the EU was a major concern for many leave voters (though not for leavers on the left, whose main concern was the EU had become a corrupt and undemocratic neo-liberal capitalist institution).
My gripe is with Dominic Cummings – possibly the most powerful unelected politician in Britain today – who exploited widespread suspicion and hostility towards Muslims by falsely claiming that Turkey was about to join the EU.
He said: “If Boris, Gove and Gisela had not supported us and picked up the baseball bat marked ‘Turkey/NHS/£350m’ with five weeks to go, then 650,000 votes might have been lost.”
That number is significant.
If 650,000 people had voted remain instead of leave, then remain would have won the referendum by a small margin.
Mr Parker accuses me of ignoring lies from the other side.
In fact, I wrote the following: “On both sides, this important debate has been derailed by those who make lurid and unverifiable predictions about the catastrophe which will befall us if we don’t vote the way they want us to.” (HAS, June 17, 2016)
Pete Winstanley, Durham
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