Yesterday Guido brought you the news that Agra Europe, a Brexit-scaremongering think tank which claims to be “independent“, had directly received €36,000 from the European Union. Today he can reveal that the true figure is far higher.

Agra CEAS is a consultancy firm that is a sister company of Agra Europe – both are owned by Informa UK. A search of the European Commission Financial Transparency System reveals that, just last year, Agra CEAS was awarded a massive €209,825 contract by the EU’s agriculture programme. So that’s €36,000 of taxpayers’ money going directly to Agra Europe, and another €200,000 bunged to its sister firm. Within months, they had published a damning report claiming “A British exit from the European Union would have a devastating effect on the nation’s farmers”, so Brussels certainly got bang for our buck. Textbook sockpuppetry attempting to skew the referendum debate…

UPDATE: Agra get in touch to say the €36,000 contract is a subscription paid by the European Commission for their news services, and stress the €200,000 relates to an “independent consultancy”. One that is owned by the same company…