Tony Blair’s call for Remainers to resist Brexit has been slapped down by one of the leading figures in the Remain campaign. Lucy Thomas, who was deputy director of Britain Stronger in Europe, delivers this reality check to her old colleagues:
A split among BSE alumni between the delusional Open Britain / Roland Rudd fundamentalists and members of the reality-based community like Lucy…
Yesterday we revealed that the holding company for the remainers’ campaign was set up by Laura Sandys, chair of the European Movement backed with the EU’s millions. Contradicting the emphatic claim made by Lucy Thomas, the remainers’ campaign spin chief:
Britain @stronger_in Europe is in no way EU-funded & was not set up by European Movement. Care to correct? @vote_leave @odysseanproject
— Lucy Thomas (@lucycthomas) October 12, 2015
Except here is the signature of the European Movement’s Laura Sandys on the incorporation application setting it up:
We were also sent a curt denial statement:
“Britain Stronger in Europe does not receive funding from the EU, it’s nonsense to suggest that we do, and it reveals the truly desperate tactics of the Vote Leave campaign. We are registered with Companies House as ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’. We are not linked to the European Movement. Our registered address is St Bride’s House, Salisbury Square, London, EC4Y 8EH.”
They really need to get their story straight, here is the invitation to Monday’s “Stronger in Europe” launch from the youth wing of the European Movement (which gets €10,000-a-week from the EU).
The European Movement’s youth wing seems to think “Stronger in Europe” is their campaign. Possibly because in fact their boss set it up. Out of the mouths of babes…
Guido favourite Lucy Thomas, the ‘In’ campaign’s spin chief, has emphatically declared that the BSE campaign was not set up by the EU-funded ‘European Movement’:
Britain @stronger_in Europe is in no way EU-funded & was not set up by European Movement. Care to correct? @vote_leave @odysseanproject
— Lucy Thomas (@lucycthomas) October 12, 2015
Roland Rudd, the remainers’ eminence grise, also says it is a whopper of a claim:
#StrongerIn used to distortions from LeaveEU but Toby Young @toadmeister biggest whopper yet saying we are funded by EUCommission. Not true
— Roland Rudd (@RolandRudd) October 12, 2015
Oh really?
If you look up BSE’s company registration number on Companies House, you find that it was orginally called “Interim Campaign Limited” and was registered by Laura Sandys. The chair of the European Movement.
Between 2007 and 2014 the European Movement received €4.5 million from the European Commission…
UPDATE: Toby’s Telegraph piece restored:
I've now restored that paragraph, Hugo, explaining what I meant in more detail http://t.co/jinB5qviPN https://t.co/b6pouFR6wa
— Toby Young (@toadmeister) October 12, 2015
UPDATE II: Laura Sandys gets in touch to say: “I am not involved in running the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign”. Despite incorporating their original company…
She adds: “The Interim Campaign that I established before the founding of Britain Stronger in Europe did not receive any money form the EU and was carried out completely separately to my role as chair of the European Movement”. Presumably she did it in her spare time…
A key figure from the ‘remain in EU’ campaign has been given unique access to the heart of Whitehall ahead of the referendum. Guido can reveal that the Campaign Director for the Business for New Europe group, Lucy Thomas, was allowed to go ‘on secondment’ to the Department of Health’s HQ last year. According to Thomas’ LinkedIn CV, the role also included work at the Cabinet Office, though she now claims it was limited only to the Department of Health. Sources suggest the placement was organised with by the puppet-master of UK Europhilia, the mega-rich lobbyist Roland Rudd. Arch-Europhile Rudd is famously close to the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt…
Lucy’s CV is hardcore Europhile; LibDem, BBC, Business for New Europe, Whitehall, then back to Business for New Europe as the Campaign Director.
When she was at the BBC in 2008 she won the European Parliament’s Prize for Journalism – demonstrating once again the BBC’s famed “impartiality” on Europe. Strangely she has no previous campaigning experience…
Guido has requested details of outside secondments from all departments under the Freedom of Information Act. Of the departments which responded, no staff from the various EU ‘leave’ campaigns have been on secondment. The revelation is reminiscent of the row caused in 2013 by Guido’s story revealing Prince Charles’ “spy” on secondment in the Cabinet Office, which made front page news at the time. Thomas says:
“My six-month stint working to raise the awareness of dementia and the need to speed up the search for a cure was neither policy-related or anything at all to do with the EU.”
On a day when Downing Street is trying to look neutral on Europe, it’s suspicious that a government department has been handing out cushy Whitehall placements to the Campaign Director of the pro-EU campaign… it is not what you know, it is who you know…
