Thread by @fascinatorfun

“The files that expose ERG as a militant “party within a party”

This really is revealing and disgraceful not just because taxpayer money has gone to fund the ERG for such flawed & partisan work, but because IPSA, the body that should protect us, OK’d it. opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…

2/ “The ERG received hundreds of thousands of pounds in taxpayers’ money over the last four years. The ERG’s work, claimed as part of MPs’ pooled resources, is supposed to be research that is politically neutral, essentially not for party political purposes.”

“IPSA carried out a limited examination of the ERG’s output and found it “factual and informative”. But trade experts who reviewed the material dismissed the ERG’s output as “superficial and selective" and “highly partisan”.” Per legal & trade experts @StevePeers & @DavidHenigUK

4/
“far from being neutral the ‘research’ is highly party-political & that the group operates with a disruptive political agenda.

Steve Peers, professor of EU law ..., said the ERG’s research was “highly partial” and “often flawed by basic misunderstandings or omissions”.

5/
“None of the output reaches the level of analysis or research of any research report I've seen from an academic, NGO or think tank,” Peers added.

David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project at @ECIPE think tank, described the research as "superficial and selective".

6/. It relied on papers by Singham then at the Legatum Institute, that has been criticised for failing in its duty of balance and neutrality.

In fact opinions that are just plain wrong.

Yet he has been given unparalleled access to Government.

7/ This has continued as Singham moved to the IEA.

”An IEA free-trade plan written by Singham, which claimed the UK could be a £1 trillion better off outside the EU, was given an “A+ for idiocy” by The Guardian.”

Yet Johnson has used this in his speeches.

8/ “Peers said that the ERG “paper on trade and the WTO suffers from some exceptionally basic errors of fact, which are unfortunately used as the basis for unfounded claims that could, if policy was based on them, significantly damage UK exporters”.

9/
Tory MP:
(The ERG) ”has encouraged many of the myths and fantasies about a hard and no-deal Brexit that are still influencing the policies likely to be road-tested by (PM) Johnson in No 10...
Public money is being used to pay for this disruptive, often ill-informed dross.”

The CBI warning were downplayed or spun.

Its estimate that the economy could suffer GDP loss to the tune of £55billion -£100 billion by 2020 were dismissed as “ERG MPs were told the figure is simply a hypothetical “loss” based on a smaller population.”

This is false.

11/. The economy has ALREADY been estimated at suffering GDP loss of £60-£100 billion by a series of (serious, qualified) bodies including the Bank of England.

It also puts an Anti immigration on job losses

Anti immigration *spin* darn it.

12/
Beyond the ‘fortune-cookie’ summaries there is scare-mongering. ERG MPs are given lists of the government’s “false claims” that should be deployed in debates on immigration.

13/
“These include claims on welfare for immigrants, under-reporting of migration, UK jobs linked to exports to the EU, and predicted economic shocks as a result of Brexit.

14/. “On an evaluation that leaving the EU could result in “a decade or more of uncertainty”, ERG MPs are told that this is false because “Greenland left the EU in less than three years”. The population of Greenland is 56,000, roughly the same as the town of Kidderminster.”

15/. Similarly it grossly misleads about WTO rules, applications and limits.

Basically the taxpayer has paid hundreds of thousands of £ for dangerous bollocks which is currently informing Government decision making and IPSA the body, supposed to protect us from it approved it.

16/
To make matters worse it tried to conceal its failures spending MORE taxpayer money on trying to prevent its disclosure by defending an indefensible FOI case in tribunals

I hope @openDemocracy will pursue another FOI to establish how much taxpayer money WAS spent on that.

17/. Good work @openDemocracy team including @petergeoghegan . Do support if you can.

So what can we do about @ipsaUK ?

What can we do to get our money back?

What can we do to prevent such ill-informed, partisan bollocks driving our country to such acts of destruction?

18. Thanks to @drmpwalsh

The good news - Chair of IPSA is resigning.

theipsa.org.uk/news/press-rel…

The bad news. She’s resigning

“to focus on my other non-exec roles, including chairing a new initiative to combat fraud in the payments made by UK consumers.”

Right.