The staunchly eurosceptic Daily Express has published a listicle about the “amazing things we get back if we leave EU”. / “From powerful vacuums to straight banana’s (sic), here are all the things we’ll get back if we vote out,” the paper says. / The piece has been getting widely shared online. But does it pass the FactCheck test?

FRANCE 24’s Europe team digs through news stories around Europe to shake out the truth from the trash. You can also catch the segment in our Talking Europe show on Saturdays from 12.10 pm Paris time.

Boris Johnson claimed at Prime Minister’s Questions that Brexit “has given us the freedom to establish eight freeports across the country”. / And the IfG makes clear: “the UK could create freeports as a member of the EU”.

Sovereignty, economic growth, immigration, influence on the world stage: these have been the big issues in Britain’s debate on whether to stay in the European Union. But teabags, vacuum cleaners and oven gloves may have as much sway on the outcome.

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.

Campaigns on both sides of Britain's referendum on EU membership have been pushing their messages hard, but more than a few of those messages are actually myths.

When it comes to reporting new legislation planned by the European Union, many British tabloids have a tendency to "overdo it".

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.

This article, circulated widely on social media at the time of the referendum, claimed in error that EU tariffs starve African farmers. Since then it has been updated with an errata explaining its stated facts and conclusion are wrong. No tariffs are paid except on weapons. / NOTE: This article has now been removed from CAPX. We've linked to a copy from the WayBackMachine web archive.]

If anyone is interested in a super-geeky thread on the now infamous FCO 30/1048, here it is. It's actually a fascinating document; incredibly balanced, accurate, visionary and pragmatic about Britons' post-imperial illusions of sovereignty. Well worth a read of the summary pages.

There are more than 80 such zones across the Union.

"European Parliament votes to create 'BERLIN TIME' that UK could be forced to adopt". That was the colourful claim from British tabloid the Daily Express on March 26. The article claims that MEPs have voted to "advance plans to shift to Berlin time in 2021". Although some elements of the article are correct, no specific time zone is being imposed in the EU.

A number of obscure pieces of trade law have taken on near mythical status in the Brexit debate. One of them is Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt).

Unfortunately, both points raised by Jacob in this clip are incorrect. Firstly there isn’t a 10-year window under WTO rules that allow us to retain on our current trading arrangement with the EU.

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.

Claims by Boris Johnson that regulations imposed by “Brussels bureaucrats” were damaging the trade in kippers have been debunked by the European commission, which said that the food safety obligations criticised by him were due to rules set by Britain.

"Forget the fiction... it's absolute nonsense. It needs to be called out."

With levels of Euroscepticism in Britain unabating and daily press declarations that the EU has banned everything from the Queen on our passports to old-fashioned tea rooms, is it time to question how much of this EU reporting is actually true?

A slow metric transition in Britain has led to widespread myths about metrication in the UK. Unfortunately, many (but certainly not all) anti-EU campaigners have also opposed metrication and have spread myths about metrication to attack Britain’s participation in the EU.

We could find no evidence that this has ever been successfully put forward as a reason for an asylum seeker to be granted the right to remain in the UK. A similar claim made in 2011 by Theresa May was widely debunked at the time.

Let’s be clear, the chips ban is another ‘Euromyth’. The EU has never had the intention of banning any food or culinary tradition – just like it never banned curved bananas and cucumbers.

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.