The EU has ruled on the curves of cucumbers, forbidden hairdressers from wearing heels, and even financed a porn film. These urban legends about decisions taken in Brussels are as endless as they are false. And they all get the kiss of life in the same place: the British tabloids.

A large number of our readers have asked us to factcheck a list of claims about the Lisbon Treaty, or “what will actually happen if we stay in the EU”, which has gone viral on social media.

The European Union has compiled a comprehensive, alphabetical list of every myth peddled about the bloc. From standardised condom sizes and a ban on corgis, to off-licenses being prohibited and ‘Made in Britain’ labels facing the axe, there’s no shortage of fanciful claims and scare stories. And one by one, they’ve explained why the claims are bunkum, nonsense or exaggeration.

Here, Stephen Fry on the quiz show QI discusses various fearful theories about European Union regulations and the misunderstandings which led to them.

Is Turkey joining the EU? That was a claim made back in 2016, in one of nearly 1,600 pro-Brexit adverts run by the official Brexit campaign, "Vote Leave" and two associated campaigns, "BeLeave" and "DUP Vote to Leave".

"The term euromyth is used to refer to exaggerated or invented stories about the European Union ..."

Andrew Bridgen—a Conservative Party MP and Brexit supporter—claims that the “overwhelming majority” of EU member states have no steel industry.

In October 2015, I gave a speech to international journalists in Germany called, ‘Newspaper lies can cost lives.’ Less than a year later, Britain voted for Brexit, with one of the main reasons cited as ‘too many migrants’. How did such a fear and dislike of migrants develop? Newspaper lies played an enormous role.

I rebutted @DCBMEP's original thread. He deleted most of it and retweeted it here. So here's my original rebuttal thread on why he's wrong, slightly elaborated.

As the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent between 1989 and 1994, he invented a self-serving journalistic genre that set a poisonous tone for British EU reporting.

This thread examines claims made in this BrexitCentral article by Kevin Dowd regarding an alleged quintupling of tariffs on oranges from South Africa imported into the EU.

One of the most frequently repeated lies about Europe is to say that, when we joined the EU, ‘we were told we were only joining a free-trade area’ and ‘no-one told us that it was more than that’. / Britain actually left a free-trade area, EFTA, to join the EEC.

How big is the EU budget? / How much does each of us pay into the EU budget? / What part of the EU budget is spent on administration? / Do EU staff members pay taxes or pension contributions? / Have the EU auditors signed off the EU accounts? / What is the 'error rate' reported by the Court? / What is being done to ensure taxpayers’ money is not wasted? / ...

Creating ‘Euromyths’ has become something of a cottage industry in the UK and the EU more broadly speaking. In fact, it’s so common that the European Commission has its own page dedicated to debunking these Euromyths indexing some 650 myths as of June 2016.

Last week, economist Roger Bootle wrote a piece for The Telegraph entitled We cannot be fooled by the myth of EU economic success. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it here and correcting and commenting upon many of the inaccuracies that the piece contained.

The image of empty shelves is being incorrectly linked to Brexit. Carrefour's supply chain has been hit amid a strike at its logistics provider.

"The law that P&O are allegedly relying on was introduced as a result of EU directives... He [Starmer] would have kept us unable to change it... He would have made it impossible to protect UK employees" (Johnson). / Ireland & Spain banned fire & rehire. Both are in the EU.

Just in case a Brexit vote today marks the beginning of the end of the euro-myth, we celebrate the most inventive red herrings of all and judge just how truthful they were.