“George Osborne will threaten today to put 2p on the basic rate of income tax, raise fuel duty and slash spending on health, education, defence and pensions in an emergency budget in the weeks after a Brexit vote. In the Remain campaign’s most explicit ultimatum to voters, the chancellor outlines tax rises and cuts to frontline services of £30 billion, which are being readied in case Britain opts to leave the European Union next week. He will also say that the Treasury could be forced to increase the higher rate of income tax by 3p” – The Times (£)
>Today:
“It isn’t pretty – but ‘Project Fear’ is still Remain’s best card. In recent days, the myth has resurfaced that ‘The Vow’, the promise of further powers for the Scottish parliament, won the 2014 independence referendum. It didn’t. An Edinburgh University study found that only 3 per cent of voters cited the offer as the main motivation for their decision. By contrast, 26 per cent named the fear that ‘independence would make Scotland worse off’” – George Eaton, New Statesman
“The only card Remain have left to play is to hype up the economic threat even more… In fact, what about a package of cuts so outrageous that it will get people talking and – here’s the trick! – change the subject away from immigration? Sure, people can talk about what a bounder Osborne is. But at least they’ll be talking about the economy” – Fraser Nelson, Spectator
“Senior Tory Cabinet ministers today publish six pieces of legislation they would pass to restore Britain’s border controls and end the supremacy of EU law in the event of a Brexit. In an audacious challenge to the Prime Minister, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and Boris Johnson set out what is effectively a manifesto for a ‘government in waiting’. They pledge that the new laws would be in place by the next General Election in 2020” – Daily Mail
“The prospect of Britons voting to leave the EU next week fuelled global market upheaval on Tuesday, with investors rushing for safety and sending the UK currency and stocks to their lowest levels in months. The accelerating shift, which came after a trio of opinion polls showed Leave leading by significant margins, was most marked in government bonds, where a series of records were smashed as cash flowed into the relative security of sovereign debt” – Financial Times
“A big part of my answer to the question, ‘If we were not already a member of the European Union, would we choose to join it?’ is that when we were not a member we did choose to join it. We thought it would help correct weaknesses that we saw no other way to correct. And it did help tackle those weaknesses. This country is tangibly more prosperous, more powerful, more tolerant, more welcoming, more democratic, more hopeful; simply a better place to be than it was in 1973” – Daniel Finkelstein, The Times (£)
“Tory MPs have accused the Cabinet Secretary of showing ‘contempt for parliament’ by blocking the release of sensitive information about the impact of the EU on public services. In a strongly-worded letter, four Conservative MPs have accused Sir Jeremy Heywood of ordering civil servants to refuse to answer parliamentary questions that might jeopardise David Cameron’s bid to keep Britain in the EU” – Daily Mail
“Jeremy Corbyn has said he will ‘absolutely’ fight to defend the right of European Union workers to migrate to the UK, insisting the free movement of workers between member countries is an ‘intrinsic’ part of belonging to the organisation… Corbyn told BuzzFeed News he would not countenance curbs on the rights of EU migrants… ‘It’s intrinsic to the European Union that there has to be free movement of people,’ the Labour leader said” – BuzzFeed News
>Yesterday:
“Hillary Clinton went after Donald Trump today at a rally in Pittsburgh calling him ‘shameful’ for suggesting yesterday that President Obama was ‘on the side of terrorists.’ She dissected the national security speech that Trump delivered yesterday in the aftermath of the Orlando terror attack, saying it contained a number of ‘bizarre rants’ and ‘outright lies’” – Daily Mail