Not true. There is a persistent myth (reliably recycled every year by UK newspapers) that the European Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the EU’s accounts, but this is false.
So here's a story about how Jacob Rees-Mogg's nonsense can travel halfway around the world before the fact-checkers have got their boots on.
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.
Over the years there have been a number of stories about how EU laws impact our lives in the UK.
UK Voters knew the 1975 Referendum was about both an ‘economic & political union’ with the rest of Europe
16/03/2016
UK Voters knew the 1975 Referendum was about both an ‘economic & political union’ with the rest of Europe.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has claimed Brexit allowed the UK to approve a Covid vaccine more quickly than other European Union (EU) countries.
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.
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.
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.
Once an obscure idea confined to the darker corners of the internet, the anti-Islam ideology is now visible in the everyday politics of the west. How did this happen?
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg was wrong about this but he’s never corrected his mistake, and the myth persists. What is the claim and why is it wrong?
The great cabbage myth
06/04/2016
It has been suggested recently that there are 26,911 words of European Union regulation on the sale of cabbage. The claim is not true, but it has a long and interesting history dating back to the US in the 1940s.
The EU has archived all of the “Euromyths” printed in UK media – and it makes for some disturbing reading
17/07/2019
An EU archive of “Euromyths” printed in UK media that dates back to the early 1990’s has been making the rounds on social media as the UK and EU agree terms on Britain’s exit from the union.
The Brexit self-punishment machine
05/01/2024
It’s tempting to ignore the government’s announcement, made in the doldrums between Christmas and the New Year, that it is to become legal to sell wine and champagne in pint bottles.
The Brexit Benefit Myths
29/10/2021
The government and its supporters are beginning to claim 'benefits' of being outside the European Union some of which were always available to EU member states or, in other cases, are not benefits at all.
Featuring such hits as 'Curved bananas banned by Brussels' and 'EU to ban lollipop ladies’ sticks'.
The 10 biggest lies of Brexit
21/06/2023
Seven years since the referendum, how have the “promises” made by the most prominent Brexiteers panned out? Here’s a rundown of the 10 most spectacular untruths.
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.