Petition to stop pro-EU leaflets gets 100,000 backers

 

A petition against a £9m government campaign to promote EU membership will be considered for debate in Parliament, after getting over 100,000 signatures.

The e-petition was set up after news broke that leaflets would be sent out to 27 million UK homes from next week.
Leave campaigners said the "one sided" campaign was an "outrageous" use of taxpayers' money.
The PM said the government was "not neutral" and backed remaining in the EU and it was right to explain why.
David Cameron came in for criticism on Thursday after it emerged that the publicly funded campaign explaining the government's position on the EU referendum would see leaflets delivered to every UK home from next week.

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The petition, launched by the Get Britain Out group on the government's e-Petitions site, entitled "Stop Cameron spending British taxpayers' money on pro-EU referendum leaflets" had more than 120,000 signatures on Friday morning.
The government's response states that the EU Referendum Act 2015 "commits the government to provide information to the public on EU membership ahead of the vote, and that is what we will do".
Not every petition which reaches 100,000 signatures gets debated by MPs in the Commons, but all must be considered.
Five petitions lodged during this Parliament have been ruled out for debate and a further seven, including the EU leaflet campaign, have more than 100,000 signatures but have not yet been considered for debate by the cross-party Petitions Committee.
Once the official campaign period begins next week, the official "Leave" and "Remain" campaigns will only be able to spend up to £7m by law.
Eurosceptic MPs forced ministers to agree to limit the use of the machinery of government to boost the Remain case in the weeks running up to the 23 June referendum vote.
But the ex-Conservative cabinet minister Liam Fox - who backs the UK leaving the EU - told the BBC on Thursday the government was exploiting a "loophole" in the rules to put the leaflets out early.
"The government knows that it wouldn't be allowed to put this leaflet out during the last four weeks of the campaign and is taking advantage of that loophole. What the government are effectively doing is doubling the funding for one side, ie the Remain campaign, by spending this amount of money."

'No apology'

And Labour's Gisela Stuart, who chairs pro-exit campaign group Vote Leave, said the public wanted "an honest debate" not "an attempt by the prime minister to buy the referendum result".
The pro-Brexit Grassroots Out group has written to the Electoral Commission, questioning whether the leaflet was legitimate "given that the government has not registered as a campaigner".
But Mr Cameron, in a speech to students, said he would make "no apology" for the leaflets and said there was "nothing to stop the government from setting out its views in advance of the campaign".
He said he wanted every voter to have "all the information at their fingertips" when they go to vote: "I think that is money well spent. It is not... just legal, it is necessary and right."
Downing Street said the campaign followed polling which suggested 85% of people wanted more information from the government to help them make an informed choice.
The leaflet is due to start hitting doormats in England next week, but not until after 5 May elections in the rest of the UK.