New research by Vote Leave reveals that 19 out of the 22 substantive points in the Government’s EU deal either simply re-state the status quo or will not be delivered by the negotiation.

• Seven (32%) of the points are demands for the status quo to be kept.

• A further ten (45%) require Treaty change to be implemented in full (and even most of these changes, such as removing the phrase ‘ever closer union’, will make very little difference to the UK’s relationship with the EU). The Government has admitted that Treaty change will not occur before the referendum, contrary to previous promises that it would.

• A further two promises (9%), for the EU to sign new trade deals and to determine the terms of future accessions to the EU, cannot be delivered as part of the renegotiation.

• The remaining three promises (14%), to implement commitments to subsidiarity, boost competitiveness and introduce a target to cut regulation, are unlikely to have any impact as the EU has made and ignored these pledges before.

See the annex for more details.

New reference guide to the EU renegotiation package published

Vote Leave has also published a new detailed 40 page reference guide to the UK renegotiation and why it will not bring back control to the British public. In it, we also examine a number of potential rabbits that the Government might pull out of the hat and why they will not work. You can download the full dossier here.

Commenting, Vote Leave Chief Executive Matthew Elliott said:

‘David Cameron has asked for very little from the EU, his renegotiation is almost entirely cosmetic. Asking the EU to confirm that the status quo continues- like that the pound is the UK’s currency - is not going to persuade anyone that he has negotiated hard for Britain.

‘Many of the changes he is asking for require treaty change. He is effectively asking the British people to vote for something that has no more value than an unsigned contract.

‘The only way to take back control is to Vote Leave.’

8 out of 10 of David Cameron’s demands will not be delivered

Note: to prevent double counting towards the headline figure, ticks in brackets indicate where a promise falls into more than one category. For the purpose of clarity, these quotations come from the Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk of 10 November last year. They are analysed and compared in detail in the reference guide to the contents of the draft Decision of the European Council, published on 2 February 2016.