Vote Leave - It’s The TPA

As the campaigns get under way in the run-up to the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, those wanting out have decided to fight amongst themselves - which should provide some excellent spectator sport. In addition to the campaign being backed by Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and some of his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP, a second camp calling itself Vote Leave has now launched.

So who is behind Vote Leave? As the Guardian has told, “Vote Leave has … signed up MPs from the Conservatives, Labour and Ukip, as well as prominent business people including another former Tory treasurer, the former Dixons chairman Lord Kalms, and former Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson. Other prominent supporters include author Frederick Forsyth, Green Party peer Baroness (Jenny) Jones, historian Andrew Roberts and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord Trimble”.

There is the added bonus of Douglas “Kamikaze” Carswell, which means he and Farage are backing different horses, just to emphasise that not all is well on Planet Kipper. But then we see that one of the campaign groups lending its support is Business for Britain. Who they? Well, BfB shares the same address as the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Moreover, staff appear to move between the TPA and BfB seamlessly, which is probably because the two are effectively the same organisation. BfB has been pumping out propaganda telling how much better the EU would be, if it were not for all that regulation, and all that Government. This, to no surprise at all, is exactly the same line as the TPA puts out when attacking local and national Government in the UK.

The message is also the same one put forward by the No2AV campaign, claiming that there is an EU versus NHS investment trade-off, which would be interesting to see, although we are not going to get a cost-benefit analysis showing EU costs versus the cost of being outside the EU (pace Norway) set against the benefits of both. That is another hallmark of the TPA: you aren’t allowed to see the whole picture.

That, after all, would introduce complicating shades of grey. It would also expose any of that sleight of hand that the TPA loves to indulge in. And sleight of hand there will be: Vote Leave is being led by Matthew “Gromit” Elliott of TPA infamy. Hence the support of former TPA alumni like Mark Wallace, and their pals like the loathsome Toby Young. Current TPA CEO Jonathan Isaby is also on board. This is a TPA campaign.

And here on Zelo Street we know all about TPA campaigns, from the phoney “Taxpayer funded lobbying” and “Taxpayer funded environmentalism” campaigns to the witless proposition that speed cameras cause casualty accidents (wrong). Whether the politicians who have signed up to Vote Leave appreciate this is not known, but they will find out, with the certainty of night following day.

Why Elliott and his pals don’t just admit who is behind it is unclear.