Poor relations

Only yesterday I was writing about the phenomenon that broadcaster and journalist Nicholas Jones has termed "Project Deception", referring to the way in which the right-wing media has colluded with Brexiteers by repeatedly insisting that leaving the EU will bring about economic prosperity while simultaneously dismissing or ignoring any evidence to the contrary. So it should be the source of embarrassment and humiliation for all concerned that a report from the Treasury itself has now confirmed that the country will be worse off out of Europe, whatever shape that exit takes.

What's more, the report indicates that the projected fall in national income will be at least partially attributable to restrictions on freedom of movement and migration from Europe. The relentless front-page attacks on immigrants (as charted in Jones' lecture last night) are thereby exposed for what they are: nasty, xenophobic, ideologically driven nonsense.

It's to be hoped that the news media now do their job properly in publicising the report's findings widely as a corrective to all of the vacuous claims made by Tory ministers and those who've backed Brexit. The BBC have made it their top story, at least.