Eurosceptics who wish to leave the EU are uniting around a group backed by Ukip donor Arron Banks, reversing the former fragmentation of the movement.
The Bruges Group, the Democracy Movement, Campaign for an Independent Britain, and Global Britain are all now behind The Know campaign, which will be renamed Leave.EU following changes to the referendum question.
The united group is also to receive Ukip’s blessing during the opening day of the party conference on Friday.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, told the Express:
“I’m delighted all these groups are uniting for the great cause of taking Britain out of the EU. It is fantastic that the Ukip conference in Doncaster today is the arena where this historic coming together is formally taking place.”
Breitbart London, a rightwing news site, is also claiming that donors of Business for Britain, a rival Eurosceptic outfit set up by TaxPayers’ Alliance founder Matthew Elliott, may transfer their support to Leave.EU.
Leave.EU also enlisted the support of Goddard Gunster, a campaigning consultancy, with the movement claiming to have 160,000 registered supporters already.
A Survation poll from earlier this month claimed that just over half of Britons wanted to leave the EU, though this was out of line with much polling from previous months, which showed separatist voters accounted for only a quarter of Britons.
Image Credit – Europe map, August 2012 by Charles Clegg
