wiki european research group

Making social science accessible

Politics and Society

UK-EU Relations

This fact was correct when it was updated on 21 Sep 2020

What is the European Research Group (ERG)?

The European Research Group (ERG) is a group within the Parliamentary Conservative Party that provides research and co-ordinates activity – such as public letters on Brexit and informal organisation – for eurosceptic Conservative MPs. Mark Francois took over as chair in February 2020. Previous chairs include Jacob Rees-Mogg , Steve Baker and Suella Braverman. Recently, Conservative MPs established a China Research Group concerned about the UK’s relationship with China, based on the ERG model.

More facts you may be interested in

What is a recession.

06 Mar 2024

Who are the judges of the European Court of Human Rights?

23 Feb 2024

What is fiscal headroom?

22 Nov 2023

Subscribe to our newsletter

Brexit: The history of the Tories' influential European Research Group

• Published 19 January 2018

Described last September by its then-chair Suella Fernandes as "a group of MPs who are supporting the government to deliver a Brexit which works for everybody", the European Research Group (ERG) has been around for years, but who are they and why don't we know more about them?

We don't know because there is no requirement on the group to publish a list of members.

It has no official role in Parliamentary proceedings, or even within the Conservative Party itself.

It is seen as influential - with reports that there are up to 60 Conservative backbenchers who are members of the group.

But while it has been said that the ERG is a group of "hard-line Brexiteers", BBC research shows that members of the group, past and present, come from all sides of the EU referendum debate.

Late last year Ms Fernandes circulated a letter amongst Conservative MPs that implored government ministers to ensure any transitional period would not become an attempt to keep the UK inside the EU "by stealth".

The letter was put together by Change Britain, a group that evolved from the remnants of Vote Leave, who were the official campaign group for Leave during the EU referendum.

• Tories urge 'unity' in EU bill vote
• Six figures to shape the Brexit battle

Although reported to have been signed by nearly 40 Conservatives, when Ms Fernandes was later asked by Channel 4 who the members of the group were, she didn't answer, suggesting it was up to individuals to disclose whether they were members of the ERG or not.

In the same interview, Ms Fernandes, who was then a ministerial aide at the Treasury and has since been promoted to minister in the Brexit department, confirmed the ERG "is funded by public money and has been for many years".

This public money comes from an allowance all MPs have available to put into collective research services, and the ERG is not the only such group in Parliament.

BBC research understands the ERG has been in existence since 1992 when Michael Spicer, now Lord Spicer, founded the group while he was the chair of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

The Maastricht Treaty had been signed by John Major in February that year and Michael Spicer had been one of the rebels who voted consistently against the government.

The new chair, selected after Suella Fernandes' ascension into the ministerial ranks, is Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In between the first and current chair, other known leaders of the group have included: David Heathcoat-Amory, Chris Heaton-Harris and now-Brexit minister Steve Baker, meaning all known chairs of the group were pro-Leave at the time of the EU Referendum.

However it's only since 2010, the first year MPs were required to publish expenses with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, that any of the wider membership can be more easily identified.

MPs who are members of the ERG allocate a small portion of their office allowances to cover the costs of the group's researcher.

From the IPSA records, it appears there are 45 MPs who have claimed fees at one point or another in those intervening years, eight of them are currently serving in the cabinet and another one attends.

Some of those 45 appear to have stopped or put their allowances claims on hold while others did not claim the fee every year.

Cabinet attendees who have claimed expenses for the ERG since 2010:

• David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the EU
• Liam Fox, Secretary of State for International Trade
• David Gauke, Secretary of State for Justice
• Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Transport
• Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
• Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons (Attends Cabinet)
• Brandon Lewis, Party Chairman
• Penny Mordaunt, Secretary of State of International Development

Of the Cabinet attendees who have claimed allowances for the ERG, six were pro-Leave while the other three, David Gauke, Sajid Javid and Brandon Lewis, campaigned for Remain. Of the 45 total MPs identified through claims, 33 were pro-Leave and 12 pro-Remain.

However, the allowances records are not the only means by which members of the ERG can be identified.

The group has not been shy in signing and distributing letters and before the attempt to distribute a letter in the Sunday papers in September was aborted, they publicised one sent to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council.

The letter lists not only the officers as they were in November 2016 when the group "relaunched", but also a list of names of MPs, not all of whom were Conservative MPs, who supported the European Research Group's letter asking for the European Council to guarantee reciprocal rights for resident EU and UK citizens.

The only officer who was a signatory to this letter and hadn't claimed any allowances for contributions into the ERG is the ardently pro-Remain MP John Penrose, who supported several amendments to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill along with fellow Conservative MPs such as Dominic Grieve and Anna Soubry.

Other MPs have revealed themselves to be supporters simply when asked the question, such as the new Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, James Cleverly, on an October 2017 episode of BBC's Brexitcast podcast.

Other ERG officers and supporters past and present:

• Bim Afolami MP
• Steve Baker MP (Brexit Minister)
• Guto Bebb MP (Defence Minister)
• Andrew Bridgen MP
• Christopher Chope MP
• James Cleverly MP (Deputy Party Chairman)
• Therese Coffey MP (Environment Minister)
• Robert Courts MP
• Jonathan Djanogly MP
• Jackie Doyle-Price MP (Health Minister)
• James Duddridge MP
• Iain Duncan Smith MP
• Charlie Elphicke MP
• Suella Fernandes MP (Brexit Minister)
• Mark Field MP (Foreign Office Minister)
• Mark Francois MP
• Chris Heaton-Harris MP (Whip)
• Bernard Jenkin MP
• Eleanor Laing MP(Deputy Speaker)
• Pauline Latham MP
• Brandon Lewis MP (Party Chairman)
• Tim Loughton MP
• Craig Mackinlay MP
• Kit Malthouse MP (Work and Pensions Minister)
• Stephen McPartland MP
• Nigel Mills MP
• James Morris MP(CCHQ Vice-Chair)
• Owen Paterson MP
• John Penrose MP
• Chris Pincher MP(Deputy Chief Whip)
• Jacob Rees-Mogg MP (ERG Chair)
• Alec Shelbrooke MP
• Henry Smith MP
• Desmond Swayne MP
• Michael Tomlinson MP (ERG Vice-Chair)
• Martin Vickers MP
• David Warburton MP
• Bill Wiggin MP
• Mike Wood MP

About the ERC

Interested to know more about the ERC?  

Learn here about its mission, structure and governance. Also, check the job and tender opportunities. 

Our mission, structure and governance, key figures 

Composition, appointment of members, former members, meeting minutes  

Gender and diversity issues, open science, innovation and relation with industry, widening European participation, science behind the projects 

Panels, conflict of interest, scientific misconduct and ethics, programme impact, monitoring and evaluation 

Learn about its activities and management

Open vacancies, interim positions, internships

Publication of opportunities for works, supply or service contracts 

European Research Group

• 2.1 Other Possible Suspects
• 4.1 Timeline
• 4.2 Temp References
• 5 References

Eurosceptic political think-tank. The name is believed to relate to the two Brexit ministries, the DExEU and the DfIT . Patrick Kidd commented that it "is poorly named. It does little research, hates the EU and isn’t much of a group". ref The ERG is generally accepted to be a "party within a party".

Read Gove’s wife Sarah Vine’s Daily Mail column to see if any clues can be picked up: The Daily Mail 1 + The Daily Mail 2 OpenDemocracy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/

This has now vanished; may be a red herring. Linked from here The European Research Group is listed as a client on the Cushman Wakefield website, which says: "research is seen as integral to helping our clients understand market trends and using our market intelligence and strategic advice to add value to their activities. We pride ourselves on being renowned as an industry knowledge leader and we maintain one of the most comprehensive and accurate databases of global property data, tracking over 1,000 markets in Europe alone." Re-found on archive.org

In its initial incarnation, the ERG was founded by Tory backbencher Sir Michael Spicer in 1994, with Daniel Hannan running its activities. Believing in an enlarged EU of free-trading independent nation states, it helped bring together like-minded parliamentarians from across the continent, acting as a focus for eurosceptics of all hues in the late 1990s and early 2000s – rather like the Anti-Maastricht Alliance did for campaigners in the early 1990s under the late Lionel Bell – and organising the Congress for Democracy . David Heathcoat-Amory was Chairman while a delegate to the Convention on the Future of Europe, resulting in the ERG’s Matthew Glanville operating as an important part of his tiny support team opposing the EU Constitution. In more recent years, MEP-turned-MP Chris Heaton-Harris kept the ERG flag flying and then in the wake of the 2016 referendum victory, Steve Baker took over as Chairman, ably aided behind the scenes by Christopher Howarth and Christopher Montgomery , bringing together Conservative and DUP MPs supporting the Government in delivering Brexit.

• Mar.18.2017: The 50 Groups Behind Brexit. Jonathan Isaby & Matthew Elliott , BrexitCentral .

Also see this article: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/12/theresa-may-eu-withdrawal-bill-brexit-stance-conservatives

Peter Lilley is a supporter of the European Research Group (ERG). Led by Jacob Rees-Mogg , the ERG is lobbying for a hard Brexit and has been described by Buzzfeed as “an aggressive, disciplined, and highly organised parliamentary and media operation”. Former Brexit minister, Steve Baker , is a past chair of the group. ref

• Bim Afolami [2] (2017)
• Lucy Allan [3]
• David Amess [3]
• Richard Bacon [3]
• Kemi Badenoch [4] [3]
• Steve Baker [5] [2] (2010-16) [6] , [7]
• Guto Bebb [2] (2011–15)
• Sir Henry Bellingham [3]
• Bob Blackman [3]
• Lord David Blencathra [5]
• Peter Bone [3]
• Andrew Bridgen [5] [2] (2010-17) , [3]
• David Burrowes [5]
• David Campbell Bannerman [5]
• Douglas Carswell [5] [2] (2013-14)
• Sir William Cash [5] [3]
• Christopher Chope [5] [2] (2013-15)
• Colin Clark [3]
• Simon Clarke [3]
• James Cleverly [5]
• Therese Coffey [2] (2010)
• Robert Courts [2] (2017)
• David TC Davies [3]
• Philip Davies [5] [3]
• David Davis [2] (2012-15)
• Jonathan Djanogly [2] (2013-16)
• Leo Docherty [3]
• Nigel Dodds [5]
• Jeffrey Donaldson [5]
• Nadine Dorries [5] [4] [3]
• Steve Double [5]
• Jackie Doyle-Price [2] (2010-14)
• Richard Drax [3]
• James Duddridge [5] [2] (2016-17) , [3]
• Charles Elphicke [2] (2012-17) , [3]
• George Eustice
• Nigel Evans [3]
• Michael Fabricant [5]
• Suella Fernandes [5] [5] [2] (2016)
• Mark Field [2] (2012-13)
• Liam Fox [2] (2012-15)
• Mark Francois [2] (2011-17) , [3]
• Marcus Fysh [5] [3]
• David Gauke [2] (2011-16)
• James Gray [3]
• Michael Gove [5] [2] (2016-17)
• James Gray [5]
• Chris Grayling [2] (2016)
• Chris Green [3]
• John Hayes [3]
• Chris Heaton-Harris [1] [2] (2010-16)
• Gordon Henderson [5] [3]
• Philip Hollobone [5] [3]
• Adam Holloway [3]
• Gerald Howarth [5] [2] (2010-17)
• Eddie Hughes [3]
• Alister Jack [3]
• Stewart Jackson [2] 2012-16)
• Sajid Javid [2] (2013-16)
• Bernard Jenkin [5] [6] [2] (2010-16) , [3]
• Andrea Jenkyns [3]
• David Jones [3]
• Daniel Kawczynski [3]
• Stephen Kerr [3]
• Eleanor Laing [2] (2013)
• Pauline Latham [2] (2014-17) [3]
• Andrea Leadsom [2] (2011-16)
• Sir Edward Leigh [5]
• Andrew Lewer [3]
• Brandon Lewis [2] (2010)
• Julian Lewis [3]
• Peter Lilley [5] [2] (2014-16)
• Julia Lopez [3]
• Jack Lopresti [3]
• Jonathan Lord [5]
• Tim Loughton [5] [2] (2015,2017) [3]
• Kit Malthouse [2] (2017)
• Scott Mann [5]
• Craig Mackinlay [5] [5] [2] (2016-17) , [3]
• Rachael Maclean [3]
• Karl McCartney [5]
• Stephen McPartland [2] (2013-16)
• Nigel Mills [5] [2] (2017) [3]
• Penny Mordaunt [2] (2011-16)
• James Morris [5] [2] (2010)
• Anne Marie Morris [3]
• David Nuttall [5] [2] (2012-16)
• Matthew Offord [5] [3]
• Priti Patel [3]
• Owen Paterson [5] [6] [2] (2016) , [3]
• John Penrose [5] [5] [3]
• Chris Pincher [2] (2010-15)
• Dominic Raab [5]
• John Redwood [6] [5] [3]
• Jacob Rees-Mogg [5] [2] (2010-16) , [3]
• Laurence Robertson [5]
• Andrew Rosindell [3]
• Lee Rowley [3]
• David Ruffley [2] (2014)
• Alec Shelbrooke [2] (2010-11)
• Paul Scully [5]
• Mark Simmonds [2] (2012)
• Henry Smith [5] [2] (2010-14) , [3]
• Iain Duncan Smith [5] [2] (2017) , [3]
• Bob Stewart [3]
• Rishi Sunak [8]
• Sir Desmond Swayne [5] [2] (2017) , [3]
• Derek Thomas [3]
• Michael Tomlinson [5] [2] (2016) , [3]
• Craig Tracey [5]
• Anne-Marie Trevelyan [3]
• Martin Vickers [5] [2] (2011-12,2017) , [3]
• Theresa Villiers [5]
• David Warburton [2] (2016)
• John Whittingdale [5]
• Bill Wiggin [5] [3]
• Mike J Wood [2] (2015,2017)
• William Wragg [5] [3]

Other Possible Suspects

• Dominic Cummings
• Alan Duncan
• Matthew Elliott
• William Hague
• Boris Johnson
• Tim Montgomerie
• Mark Reckless
• Dec.13.2018: Finally, some good news: the ERG has been aggressively made love to by an ass. Theresa lives to die another day. This was the second failed attempt to unseat May in three weeks, for a bunch of guys who’d be picked last for paintball and are led by rejected Paddington villain Jacob Rees-Mogg. Marina Hyde , The Guardian .

• Dec.13.2018: How the Brexiteer plotters were hamstrung by lies, egos and lack of a plan. The seeds of the attempted coup were sown three months to the day before it came to fruition. Late on Sept.11, a group of about 50 Tory MPs from the ERG gathered in the Thatcher Room in parliament. Something was not quite right, however. Senior Brexiteers — the ones the public might have heard of — were letting it be known that they had not been there. Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the ERG, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson, the self-styled “grown-ups of the Brexiteer cause”, let it be known they were not involved. What followed over the next three months was a battle between two factions in the ERG: one that wanted Mrs May removed immediately, and one more cautious about both being seen to wield the knife and being saddled with clearing up the Brexit mess. Central to the confusion was Steve Baker... claimed that there were 80 Tory MPs ready to oppose Chequers, then backtracked. A plan to publish an alternative to Chequers was delayed. ... Matt Chorley, Oliver Wright, Henry Zeffman, Francis Elliott , The Times .
• Dec.13.2018: Brexiteers hunker down for trench warfare as Theresa May survives confidence vote. Brexiteers vowed to continue in their “trench warfare” to force Theresa May from office after more than a third of her MPs declared they had no confidence in her leadership. Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the ERG, said the count was a “terrible result for the prime minister”, adding: “The prime minister must realise that on all constitutional norms she ought to go and see the Queen urgently. She clearly doesn’t have the confidence of the Commons. She should make way for someone who does.” Martin Vickers, MP for Cleethorpes, described Mrs May as a lame duck prime minister, but some Brexiteers turned on the ERG, attacking the timing and organisation of the vote. The ERG “f***ed it up”, according to one senior Brexiteer. Messages leaked from a Whatsapp group showed that Steve Baker , a leading member of the ERG, was praised by campaigners last night as a “superstar” and a “hero”. Kate Devlin, Sam Coates, Henry Zeffman , The Guardian .
• Nov.21.2018: Don’t underestimate Rees-Mogg’s ‘phantom army’ of Brexit fanatics. The no-confidence vote might not have come off, but this small group of Tory Eurosceptics will stoop low to get what they want. No one, then, should allow the recent failure of Messrs Rees-Mogg and Baker to muster the famous 48 letters required to trigger a no-confidence vote in May to fool them into thinking that Conservative Euro-fanatics are and always have been merely a phantom army. With the Tory press (and indeed ConHome) on their side, with Ukip waiting in the wings, with constituency associations and even their less fanatical parliamentary colleagues growing ever more hostile to the EU, and – most importantly – with the maths as tight as it’s often been, they haven’t really needed to be. And that remains as true right now as it has been in the past. Tim Bale , The Guardian .
• Oct.07.2018: Brexiteers threaten to sabotage the budget. Leading members of the hardline European Research Group (ERG) last night vowed to vote down government legislation after it was claimed the prime minister will use Labour MPs to push her plan through the Commons. Brexiteers have issued a last-ditch threat to vote down the budget and destroy the government unless Theresa May takes a tougher line with Brussels — amid signs that she is on course to secure a deal with the European Union. Bernard Jenkin , a veteran Eurosceptic, told a WhatsApp group of Tory MPs yesterday that it would lead to members refusing to back No 10 in other key votes. Nadine Dorries condemned the “dirty deal” and Simon Clarke MP for Middlesbrough South, said it would cost the Tories marginal seats in the north of England and the Midlands at the next election. The row came as No 10 banned Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, from briefing extracts of a speech she is to make about Brexit on Tuesday because she did not plan to praise May’s current Chequers plan for Brexit. It has also emerged that cabinet ministers have hatched a “Mourinho plot” to oust May next spring, arguing that she is as unpopular and defensive-minded as the embattled Manchester United manager. more Tim Shipman , The Times .
• Sept.15.2018: ‘Second’ bank account: MPs demand probe into Rees-Mogg’s Brexit group. Cross-party demands for an urgent investigation into the financial affairs of the European Research Group follow openDemocracy’s investigation. The ERG, chaired by Rees-Mogg, but still effectively run by former Brexit minister Steve Baker , is thought to number close to 80 Tory MPs. It has been regularly dubbed a party within a party. James Cusick , openDemocracy .
• Sept.14.2018: Tory Brexit faction censured for using public funds for campaigning. Watchdog asked ERG to stop party political activity while receiving MP expenses money. David Pegg, Felicity Lawrence, Rob Evans , The Guardian .
• Sept.13.2018: Parliament watchdog probes Rees-Mogg’s hard Brexit lobby group over “other sources of funding”. Emails released by UK parliamentary standards watchdog Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) reveal a ‘second’ bank account held by the ERG, as they pressure May to abandon Chequers. In June, IPSA wrote to the ERG seeking clarification about how it uses taxpayer money – and other unknown “sources of funding”. IPSA was reacting to concerns about public money being misused to support the ERG’s high-profile political campaign for a hard-line, uncompromised Brexit. The ERG has received ‘research funds’ (paid out of MPs’ expense claims, and therefore funded by the taxpayer) from the offices of key current and former cabinet ministers such as Michael Gove , Sajid Javid , Andrea Leadsom , Penny Mordaunt , Chris Grayling , David Gauke and David Davis . The group uses one bank account to lodge the funds received from IPSA for parliamentary ‘research’ services. However in June this year the ERG confirmed to IPSA that it holds a second bank account for paying for drinks, MPs’ breakfasts and other expenses. The ERG maintains that it does not "do political campaigning". Under current parliamentary funding rules, MPs must not use IPSA funding for party political purposes. CTF Partners , the lobbying company headed by Lynton Crosby , were reported by The Sunday Times to be working with the ERG to derail Theresa May’s proposed deal with the EU worked out at Chequers in July. James Cusick, Jenna Corderoy, Peter Geoghegan , openDemocracy .
• Sept.12.2018: The Guardian view on the European Research Group: not serious, still dangerous. Jacob Rees-Mogg and friends have had ample time to come up with credible proposals. Instead they produce flimsy falsehoods designed to wreck the prime minister’s pursuit of a Brexit deal. MPs allied to the ERG have been parading around Westminster in what they imagine to be intellectual finery. On Monday, they sported confidence that within 15 years of crashing out of the EU without a deal, the UK would be a £trillion better off than if it had stayed in the club - from a report by Economists For Free Trade . Editorial , The Guardian .
• Jul.11.2018: Hardline Brexiters demand amendments to trade bill. Angry hardline Brexiters have submitted four amendments to the govt’s trade bill, arguing that Theresa May ] has broken their trust with the soft Brexit negotiating plan she unveiled at Chequers. The ERG fronted by Jacob Rees Mogg wants MPs to kill off May’s facilitated customs arrangement in an amendment to Monday’s bill, which calls for the UK to refuse to collect duties for the EU unless member states do likewise. A second amendment, backed by the DUP and Labour’s Kate Hoey , would force the govt to agree in law to a commitment to never having a border in the Irish sea, which would kill off an EU proposal allowing Northern Ireland to remain in the customs union. Hard Brexiters have pledged to mount a campaign of guerrilla warfare against May’s government in an attempt to disrupt the soft Brexit proposal unveiled at Chequers, in which she proposed that the UK would share a “common rule book” of standards on food and goods after Brexit. In February, 62 Tory MPs from the ERG signed a letter demanding that the UK achieves full regulatory autonomy after Brexit. To have any chance of passing the amendments, the group would need the support of Labour and other opposition parties. Dan Sabbagh , The Guardian .
• Jul.09.2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnsons-resignation-good-riddance-to-a-national-embarrassment. They know May’s plan won’t survive a first brush with the EU. The endgame is to crash out, and a neo-Thatcherite revolution. ... Why did any of the Brexiters pretend to accept this plan? Because they too know that it won’t survive a first brush with the EU. So what’s their endgame? The same as ever: no deal, crash out, walk away. In their Brexlandia, there is only clean-break purity. Patrick Minford CBE, former Thatcher adviser and leader of Economists for Brexit , is willing to spell out to me what Brexit politicians dare not. Their goal is no tariffs, no barriers, no regulations, open free trade with the world. That, he claims, cuts 20% off food prices in tariffs and roughly the same again in removing all regulatory barriers. What of food quality? As long as it’s labelled, let the consumer decide. What of farmers bankrupted by cheap imports? Big farmers will do more efficient biotech farming (GM, etc); small inefficient farmers will go to the wall or be paid to protect the environment. What of manufacturing, facing a tidal wave of cheap, imported, unregulated goods? That’s an insignificant 10% of our economy, so let cheaper countries do the “metal bashing”, as we import cheaper cars: we will do high-value intellectual work. And what of all those “metal-bashing” jobs? Here he uses a favourite phrase: the “reallocation of labour”, just like all those “reallocations” of the 1980s on which he advised Thatcher, when unproductive mines, steel works and shipyards closed. Look, he says, over those years most of the 35% employed in manufacturing have been “reallocated”, with a growth in city financiers, consultants and all other services. But what of the people and the places destroyed in the process? Yes, he admits, the 1980s was a “big shock”, but it rid us of “hopelessly uncompetitive” industries. That’s what unilateral open free trade would do again, clearing out overprotection from global competition with, he claims, a huge economic boost. Short-term pain means long-term gain: a second coming of Thatcher’s 1980s. That’s the vision that dare not speak its name among Brexiteer MPs – for good reason. What irony that “metal bashing” people and places that voted Brexit would be the big losers from the true Brexiteer vision. The true heart of Brexit is a vision that is the precise opposite of the one they missold in the referendum. This is what their freedom and sovereignty means: no protections, only an unfettered market. The Tory resigners want to turn their great referendum hoax into a crash-out, no deal, close to the dystopian vision cherished by Economists for Brexit. Polly Toynbee , The Guardian .
• Jun.22.2018: UK Government minister hides leading role with hard Brexit group. Steve Baker accused of playing "fast and loose" with ministerial rules after openDemocracy investigation finds Brexit minister had undisclosed meetings with European Research Group. James Cusick, Jenna Corderoy, Peter Geoghegan , openDemocracy .
• May.22.2018: The real Tory civil war? It’s about way more than Brexit. Party modernisers are trying to attract young people with liberal views just as the party absorbs a huge number of ex-Ukippers. Linkback" Onward , Neil O'Brien , Will Tanner , Michael Gove , Ruth Davidson . Rafael Behr , The Guardian .
• Feb.21.2018: Rees-Mogg and friends are playing with fire. The self-indulgent demands of hardcore Brexiteers jeopardise a smooth exit and could usher in a Corbyn government. What is most concerning about the letter — concerning for Leavers like me, or Remainers, or anyone who wants Britain to come through Brexit in one piece — is that the text is poorly thought through and recklessly stupid. The Times, Iain Martin
• Feb.20.2018: Tory MPs' hard Brexit letter to May described as ransom note. Group of 62 backbenchers’ list of demands for exit of EU triggers furious reaction from colleagues. The Guardian, Anushka Asthana
• Feb.17.2018: Revealed: rightwing groups plot to ditch EU safety standards on food and drugs. ‘Ideal’ UK-US trade deal would see banned products sold in post-Brexit Britain, says accidentally released memo. An unprecedented drive to lobby ministers to ditch strict EU safety standards in order to secure a US trade deal is being drawn up by a transatlantic group of conservative thinktanks. (See also Trade Policy and Initiative for Free Trade ) The Guardian, Michael Savage
• Feb.09.2018: These are the Climate Science Denier MPs Lobbying for a Hard Brexit. The European Research Group (ERG) is lobbying for a hard Brexit. Jacob Rees-Mogg , Owen Paterson , John Redwood , Christopher Chope , Philip Davies . DeSmogUK, Mat Hope
• Feb.08.2018: These 70 Tory MPs Support The Hard Brexit Group Led By Jacob Rees-Mogg. The European Research Group has dominated the Tory debate on Brexit, but its true size and membership has been a mystery. A BuzzFeed News analysis has identified scores of MPs who back the cause. BuzzFeed News, Alex Spence
• Feb.06.2018: Jacob Rees-Mogg and the shadowy group of Tories shaping Brexit. This week, Rees-Mogg has attacked Philip Hammond 's Treasury and helped push Theresa May into ruling out membership of any customs union post-Brexit. Pro-European Anna Soubry expressed her dismay at the group's influence. "It feels like – and I think there's evidence to support this – Theresa is in hock to these 35 hard Brexiteers," she said. "They don't represent my party, but more importantly they don't represent people who voted leave." A fortnight ago, the ERG released a speech given by Rees-Mogg, given at Churcher’s College, Petersfield. A week later those positions were formally adopted by No.10. Jon Trickett , shadow minister for the cabinet office, has written to the expenses watchdog, IPSA , accusing the "secretive and entirely politically biased group" of misusing public money because it has its own whipping system to attack Labour and undermine govt ministers. "Jacob Rees-Mogg is pushing a rightwing Tory agenda while using his position as a platform for his political scheming," Trickett said. The Guardian, Dan Sabbagh, Caelainn Barr
• Jan.29.2018: MPs demand 'urgent investigation' into Cabinet ministers' support for hard-Brexit lobby group. Senior Conservative ministers have used taxpayers' cash to fund the hard-Brexit European Research Group (ERG), now led by Rees-Mogg MP, who has been accused in recent days of trying to undermine PM Theresa May and oust Chancellor Philip Hammond . The ministers have funded this lobby group (through their expense claims) whilst holding posts in govt – despite the ministerial code prohibiting ministers from becoming "associated with non-public organisations whose objectives may in any degree conflict with govt policy". OpenDemocacy , Adam Ramsay
• Jan.19.2018: The history of the Tories' influential European Research Group. Described last September by its then-chair Suella Fernandes as "a group of MPs who are supporting the government to deliver a Brexit which works for everybody", the European Research Group (ERG) has been around for years, but who are they and why don't we know more about them? Denis Doherty , BBC News .
• Sept.22.2017: Pete North on Twitter Twitter
• 8. As I understand it, the money came from (Lord) Greville Howard - he who is bankrolling the European Research group.
• 9. He's been funding the ultras for a long time now - to the point you and I would call corruption.
• Sept.07.2017: The Tory MPs using taxpayers’ cash to fund a secretive hard-Brexit group. Taxpayers’ money is being used to fund an influential group of hard-line pro-Brexit Conservative MPs who are increasingly operating as a “party-within-a-party”. Despite expenses rules stating that MPs cannot claim for research or work “done for, or on behalf of, a political party”, the European Research Group has received over £250,000 from MPs who claimed the public cash through their official expenses. Forty MPs have paid money to the ERG and claimed it back as ‘research’ over the period covering the David Cameron and Theresa May govts. These include current ministers and members of May’s cabinet. The true number could be higher. Other MPs regarded as ERG members have claimed expenses for “research services” on EU issues without specifying the ERG. According to a Whitehall analyst who reviewed MPs’ expense statements for OpenDemocracy , the amount of taxpayers’ money received by the ERG is likely to be well above the officially listed £250,000. According to its current chair, MP Suella Fernandes , the ERG exists to ensure that Brexit will not be rendered "meaningless". The group, regarded as an 80-strong private Tory caucus, wants Britain out of the EU single market and customs union. OpenDemocracy repeatedly requested an official list of members of the ERG from Suella Fernandes. Although her office insisted the list was "not a state secret" it would not reveal any details of the group … and said all matters relating to the group had to go through Christopher Howarth. OpenDemocracy repeatedly contacted both Mr Howarth and Ms Fernandes asking who employed Howarth where his office in the Palace of Westminster was, what research he had carried out, and how much he was being paid by the ERG. The questions were acknowledged but no information was received. ERG's previous head, Steve Baker , now a minister in the Department for Exiting the EU , said his group aimed to end EU's "despotism" and give Britain back its borders. Tory MPs who (anonymously) spoke to openDemocracy described ERG members as engaged in "their own whipping operation", using a closely-guarded WhatsApp messaging network, and sticking rigidly to the ERG's agreed policy-line on any matters relating to Brexit. One MP said "Their private newsletter is not a subject for discussion, it is a directive to be obeyed". No MP contradicted the notion of the ERG as a party-within-a-party, with many saying it had been transformed under Baker's command. Members: Liam Fox, Andrea Leadsom, Jacob Rees-Mogg, {more...} openDemocracy, James Cusick, Adam Ramsay, Crina Boros
• Mar.10.2017: Twitter photo of Private Eye Magazine, Issue No. 1439, Mar.10 – 23.2017. It appears that MPs finance the ERG by claiming around £2,000 in staff expenses, which is then paid as a subscription to the group. By checking the latest expense claims, it is apparent that among the ERG’s members are Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom, Chris Grayling, Penny Mordaunt. David Davis and Liam Fox were members in 2015, but have not renewed their subscriptions. It would appear that these free-marketeer MPs have, by funding the group through expenses, created a taxpayer-funded pro-Brexit group. But is that allowed? The rules on expenses say "members of parliament must not exploit the system… to confer an undue advantage on a..." {Note to me: I tweeted the bloke and asked for the title + date of the paper: he says it’s Private Eye, Mar.10.2017} Twitter, @Kurako76
• Feb.17.2017: Assessing the talent in the House of Commons (on both sides of the Brexit debate). ERG's goal is a hard, clean Brexit, with few if any leaving payments to the Brussels kitty and "maximum flexibility to work with the rest of the world". The New European , Michael White

Working Area

Matthew Paris wrote "I don’t think he sees himself in politics to give effect to what the public thinks, but to what the public ought to think, which is quite different".

Tory MPs Bill Cash and John Redwood spent decades attacking the constitutional and economic aspects of the EU, but it was Daniel Hannan who successfully "sold" Brexit to the people.

• Dec.2017: Six of Theresa May's cabinet are paid up "members" of secret group demanding a total break from the EU: David Davis , Michael Gove , Penny Mordaunt , David Gauke , Sajid Javid , Andrea Leadsom , Chris Grayling .ref name="od-2017.12.22" "Inane policies and promoting Brextremism./ref name="aav-2017.12.27"
• Sept.2017: The ERG signed a Change Britain initiative letter, urging the govt to stay on track for a hard Brexit.ref name="guard-2017.09.09"
• Jul.2017: The news has a twist. The ERG officers are to stay in post: they will lead a group that has been a backbench force from within the Ministerial ranks. There are two ways of looking at this development: (1) the Brexiteers are taking over the govt; or (2) the govt are taking over the Brexiteers. We leave it to our readers to make a judgement.ref name"ch-2017.07.29"
• Jul.2017: 100+ members. Suella Fernandes now Chairman, successor to Steve Baker. Brexit will be meaningless if we don't leave the SM and the CU. ref name="conhome-2017.07.06"
• Jun.2017: The anti-Brexit outcry was depressing some Leavers; they cheered up no end when Steve Baker was appointed to the Department for Exiting the EU.ref name="ji-207.06.14"
• Feb.2017: Ministers say that the direction of government is being shaped by the ERG.ref name="times-2017.02.11", ref name="indy-2017.02.05"
• Feb.2017: The ERG's power to direct govt policy seems to be increasing; one member said: "We can get anything we want." ref name="express-2017.02.11"
• Jan.2017: Brexit Secretary David Davis told a private meeting with the Legatum Institute think tank that "nothing has been ruled out" with the Customs Union. The ERG is up in arms; they only want a hard Brexit. [8]
• Jan.2017: Steve Baker publishes an open letter to Theresa May "in anticipation" of her making it clear we are leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market. It's a threat.ref name="sb-2017.01.06"
• Dec.19.2016: Steve Baker accepted a £6,500 donation from the Constitutional Research Council on behalf of the ERG (same outfit that channeled " dark money " to the DUP), to fund hospitality for ERG members and their staff at an event.ref name="parl-2016.12.19" In a brief reply, Christopher Howarth described the ERG link to the CRC as “amusing but entirely fanciful”. He repeated the explanation that the £6,500 had been from a "permissible donor".ref name="od-2017.09.07"
• Nov.26.2016: Hostility against Brexit continued unabated; calls for a second referendum are hard. Blair announced a new pro-European movement, headed by Alan Milburn . The ERG made strident demands. The country is split. The ERG is now led by John Whittingdale , Iain Duncan Smith , Michael Gove , Peter Lilley and John Redwood . ref name="soc-2016.11.26"
• Nov.25.2016: The ERG wrote to Donald Tusk, accusing Commisioner Barnier of preventing negotiations, basically attempting to grab the ball from Theresa May and push their own agenda. (Letter downloaded, see /Documents/2016.11.25-ERG-Letter-to-Donald-Tusk-1.pdf) ref name="tusk-2016.11.25" Tusk rebuffed the claims as being "unfounded in reality".ref name="tusk-2016.11.29"
• Nov.2016: Michael Tomlinson appointed deputy chairman of the relaunched European Research Group.ref name="mt-201.11.19"
• Nov.2016: Calls for a "hard Brexit" from the ERG; [[Michael Gove], Iain Duncan Smith , Theresa Villiers , Suella Fernandes . The vote to Leave started to be translated as a "hard Brexit"; this is when we started hearing about "the Will of the People". ref name="polhome-2016.11.20"
• Nov.2016: ERG relaunched to keep up pressure on the govt and force its hand. Steve Baker is Chairman. The Brexit Alliance think tank stated that more than half of Labour constituencies backed Brexit in the EU Referendum. Dragon Advisory founding partner and member of Economists for Brexit , Charlie Methven , said the MPs' call was "encouraging", as "far from being an economic benefit, the Single Market is an old-fashioned protectionist Customs Area". 60 Tory MPs plus 11 Labour, DUP and UKIP. Boris Johnson , Liam Fox , David Davis (The Three Brexiteers), Michael Gove , Ian Duncan Smith , John Whittingdale , Theresa Villiers , Owen Patterson , Peter Lilley , John Redwood , Steve Baker chairman. ref name="tgraph-2016.11.19"
• Sept.2016: A Cabinet minister said "None of these people are builders, they are destroyers, they are frightening people. They are like arsonists." Several Conservative MPs compared them to "Trots": "They are grammar-school imperialists", on a quest to reassert what they regard as Britain’s lost place in the world.
• Jun.2016: The EU Referendum. Hannan was puzzled and furious as the way Brexit was reported. He admitted that because of the closeness of the vote, the UK was unlikely to become the "offshore, low-tax, global free-trading entrepôt" that he longs us to be.
• Spring 2016: Hannan took part in 104 events and debates during the campaign.
• 2016: Eighteen years later, many of Business for Sterling 's funders and supporters gathered to the flag again.
• Autumn 2015: As Cameron began his doomed renegotiation with the EU, Hannan reached out to Gove, Johnson, Villiers and others. Gove was fed soundbites by Hannan, eg., about people being fed up with experts, joking about British MEPs losing their jobs, and comparing pro-Remain economists to Nazi scientists. Theresa Villiers freely used excerpts from Hannan's speeches.
• Summer 2015: Christopher Howarth, formerly of Open Europe , [9] took over from ERG Senior Researcher Robert Broadhurst. [1]
• Autumn 2014: Hannan, Carswell and Reckless left the Tory party for Ukip in synchronised defections designed to keep up the pressure on Cameron for a referendum.
• Aug.2012: The skeleton of the Leave campaign was in place. took its playbook from Business for Sterling . Hannan had been very impresed by Matthew Elliott 's tactics in the "No to AV" referendum, and asked him to think about an EU referendum. Elliott used the original vehicle, Business for Britain , to set about winning friends and funding from the City. Elliott hired Dominic Cummings as campaign director. It was Cummings who coined the all-important slogan "Take Back Control", and came up with the deliberately crude figure of £350m per week to describe Britain's EU budget contribution.
• Apr.2012: David Nuttall MP: sponsor of Robert Broadhurst , a "Senior Researcher, European Research Group (a group of Members that collectively employs a member of staff to support them in their Parliamentary functions). My employment by the ERG is funded by: Members' subscriptions paid for from their parliamentary allowances (or in one Member’s case, paid for by a donation from Mr John Winter); by a donation from GR Software & Research Limited; and by a donation from Lord Lamont of Lerwick ." Parliament.uk
• Sept.2011: The first meeting of the more than 80 Conservative MPs takes place tomorrow and will see major new research commissioned on Britain’s relationship with Europe. George Eustice is the driving force behind the meeting. The MPs will tomorrow commission research from think-tank Open Europe and the European Research Group. Co-founder Daventry MP Chris Heaton-Harris said: "We are not a group as such, we are a network". Priti Patel is a co-signatory to the Mainstream euroscepticism movement. ref name="express-2011.09.11"
• Mar.2011: The People's Pledge was launched; by October, a petition with 100,000 signatures had been signed, a debate in parlament, and 81 MPs signed up to the pledge.
• Nov.2009: The Conservatives abandoned their Manifesto promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Hannan resigned as MEP, to devote himself full-time to "securing and winning a referendum on leaving the EU". He got in touch with the Democracy Movement , which had its own plan to bring about an In/Out referendum, called the "People's Pledge".
• 2001: Hannan became speech-writer for William Hague , one notorious result of which was Hague's "Foreign Land" speech, which attacked Europe and asylum seekers.
• 1999-2004: Hannan "radicalised" Theresa Villiers during her time as an MEP. The former Northerthe Democracy Movement had its own plan to bring about an in-out referendum in the UK, which was called the People’s Pledge . N.Ireland secretary helped persuade David Cameron to allow his cabinet to campaign freely during the vote.
• Jul.1999: Daniel Hannan was elected to the European parliament as a Conservative candidate for the South-East. Once inside, he set about delegitimising and discrediting the EU. The very first thing he did was to write an article about the expenses and allowances available to MEPs, which caused great controversy. He wrote regularly for the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, and many others. Hannan worked tirelessly to get the Conservative MEPs out of their moderate group; in 2009, he succeeded. (see W'pedia Hannan article)
• Jul.1998: Tony Blair looked likely to adopt the Euro. The ERG published "The Euro: Bad for Business", written by Reckless, and Hannan organised two conferences. Business for Sterling was established as a single-issue pressure group to fight what was, at the time, a widely-expected referendum. Business for Sterling set the template, and included some of the key personnel, for the 2016 Leave campaign. Although led by right-wing Tory grandees - merchant banker Rodney Leach (later Baron Leach); Rupert Hambro of Hambros Bank, and the Marquess of Salisbury , it was outwardly cross-party and apolitical. Nick Herbert, who had run the Countryside Alliance , was in charge. He hired a young campaign director called Dominic Cummings . Business for Sterling recruited Bob Geldof, Vic Reeves and thousands of students to its cause. It helped keep opinion polls set against joining the Euro.
• Spring 1998: Hannan began to look for a seat in the European parliament, believing a referendum on the euro was imminent.
• Jun.1997: After the defeat to Labour, Hannan and friends attached themselves to Michael Howard as the most Eurosceptic candidate to lead the Conservatives.
• 1993: Hannan convinced Ukip MP Douglas Carswell that Britain should pull out.
• Jul.1993: The ERG was officially born - founded under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Spicer , a Tory backbencher, founded ERG "with a deliberately innocuous name".
• Mar.1993: Hannan wrote to the 22 Eurosceptic MPs, offering himself as their researcher. Around a dozen agreed to form the European Research Group (ERG), with Hannan as its secretary. There were other, new anti-EU groups, such as Patrick Robertson 's Bruges Group , and Bill Cash 's European Foundation . The ERG's primary job was to keep the European debate alive, but Hannan and friends also consciously sought to bend the Conservative party to their thinking.
• May.1992: Twenty-two Eurosceptic Conservative MPs rebelled against the Maastricht bill, almost bringing down the govt.
• Nov.1990: John Major approved an early draft of the Maastricht Treasy, which motivated Hannan to found the Oxford Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB), together with Mark Reckless and James Ross .
• 1988: Margaret Thatcher perceived a European superstate on the horizon, with a character and goals that were different from her own. "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level," she said. This "Bruges speech" established a new form of Euroscepticism.
• earlier: some interesting links on this Twitter thread about anti-EU feelings going way back.

Temp References

• Dec.27.2017/aav-2017.12.27: The secretive Tory "party within a party" drawing up insane policies and promoting Brextremism. Another Angry Voice, '
• Dec.22.2017/od-2017.12.22: Six of Theresa May's cabinet are paid up "members" of secret group demanding a total break from the EU. New data collected by IPSA show ... David Davis , Michael Gove , Penny Mordaunt , David Gauke , Sajid Javid , Andrea Leadsom , Chris Grayling . Stewart Jackson , who lost his Peterborough seat in June's general election, and is now chief of staff to David Davis at the DeXEU, also used his official expenses to pay for ERG services during the last years. Other data collated by IPSA show that 58 MPs have recently used taxpayers' money to fund the ERG’s activities. Steve Baker is regarded as the most powerful figure... openDemocracy discovered over £250,000 of public funds had been channelled to the ERG through MPs expenses. openDemocracy, James Cusick
• Nov.29.2017: Donald Tusk Says MPs' Claim About EU And UK Citizens 'Has Nothing To Do With Reality'. (References Donald Tusk letter, see Nov.25.2017) HuffPost, Jack Sommers
• Sept.09.2017/ref name:"guard-2017.09.09": Tories turn up pressure on Theresa May over EU withdrawal bill. MPs coordinate efforts to limit Henry VIII powers by forcing government to make concessions or risk humiliating defeat. It emerged that dozens of Eurosceptic backbenchers from the powerful European Research Group, had signed a Change Britain initiative letter urging the govt not to soften its stance on Brexit. ERG chair Suella Fernandes insisted she had not signed the letter herself, merely circulated it among colleagues. The Guardian, Heather Stewart, Rowena Mason
• Sept.07.2017/ref name:"od-2017.09.07": [ https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/james-cusick-adam-ramsay-crina-boros/revealed-tory-mps-using-taxpayers-cash-to-fund-sec Revealed: The Tory MPs using taxpayers' cash to fund a secretive hard-Brexit group.] Earlier this year, Baker confirmed he had accepted £6,500 from the Constitutional Research Council (same outfit that channeled ‘ dark £s ’ to the DUP) in 2016. In a brief reply this week, Christopher Howarth described the ERG link to the CRC as “amusing but entirely fanciful”. He repeated the explanation that the £6,500 had been from a "permissible donor". openDemocracy, James Cusick, Adam Ramsay, Crina Boros
• Jul.28.2017/ref name:"ch-2017.07.29": The leading Conservative pro-Brexit group joins the govt (or rather, its leading lights do). The first appointments are beginning to emerge. When we analysed the previous govt’s list, they were "mostly remainers". But the new one contains some of the leading leavers from the 2015 intake. The news has a twist. The ERG officers are to stay in post: they will lead a group that has been a backbench force from within the Ministerial ranks. There are two ways of looking at this development. First, that Brexiteers are taking over the govt. Second, that the govt are taking over the Brexiteers, since it is hard to believe that the latter will have the same freedom of action within the constraints of govt. We leave it to our readers to make a judgement. ConservativeHome, Paul Goodman
• Jul.06.2017: The double-hatted Suella Fernandes – both a member of the govt and a pro-Leave group leader. Chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative MPs, she succeeded Steve Baker. Under Baker's leadership, the ERG swiftly established a reputation as the most formidable pro-Brexit group within the parliamentary party, and Fernandes says it now has over 100 members. She insists that Brexit will be "meaningless" if it does not include leaving the Single Market and Customs Union. She has recently become a Parliamentary Private Secretary, jointly with Chris Philp , to the Treasury team of ministers, with Kwasi Kwarteng as PPS to the Chancellor of the Exchequer . ConHome: "And how does the ERG work? How many members do you have?" Fernandes: "Well we have a communication group, and that has over a hundred people I think in it. And we have briefings for our members, we provide research for them. I'm really glad that we’ve got Christopher Howarth providing the evidential ballast that they need. Crawford Falconer , the newly appointed trade negotiator, was New Zealand ambassador, he is very, very optimistic, and ready for striking trade deals, he said that after the UK cut trade links with New Zealand, they had to embrace the rest of the world, it kick-started their agricultural sector and it made them a lot more profitable, efficient, competitive". Conservative Home, Andrew Gimson
• Jun.14.2017/ref name:"ji-2017.06.14": Steve Baker’s appointment provides huge reassurance that Brexit remains on course. David Jones sacked as a minister at the Brexit Department, Lord Bridges decided to quit his post... yesterday morning, many of the 80 or so members of the ERG, chaired by Steve Baker, gathered in Committee Room 14 for a meeting with (now reappointed) Brexit minister Robin Walker and Greg Hands and Mark Garnier from the Department for International Trade . The MPs were assured that govt policy had not changed and that the agenda of Feb's White Paper – outside the Single Market and Customs Union, British law again being supreme etc – very much remained in place. BrexitCentral, Jonathan Isaby
• Feb.11.2017/ref name:"express-2017.02.11": Tory Brexiteers' WhatsApp Group 'directing govt policy on EU exit'. The ERG coordinates political strategy through a WhatsApp group entitled: "ERG DExEU/DIT Suppt Group". The name is believed to relate to the two Brexit ministries – the Department for Exiting the EU and the Department for International Trade . The goal of the organisation is reportedly to ensure a hard, clean Brexit with no payments to the EU, no reliance on EU courts and maximum flexibility to deal with the rest of the world. The group holds regular Monday meetings and each MP pays £2,000 a year from their parliamentary expenses towards a full-time researcher and other help. A leading ERG member told the Times they get "anything they want." The Express, Harry Walker
• Feb.11.2017/ref name:"times-2017.02.11": Brexit-backing MPs plot their attacks on WhatsApp. Ministers say that the direction of govt is being shaped by ... the ERG. Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell , his soulmate, agitator for "direct democracy" and co-author of a book extolling populist politics which bypass the parliamentary system. They express a form of contemporary Falangism and, jointly with Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings , deceitfully suggested that "Take back control" implied the restoration of Westminster sovereignty. Anyone who watched the sneering and condescending "evidence" given to the Treasury Select Committee by the latter pair last Spring would be in no doubt that they share a disdain for parliamentary democracy. That quartet are widely known as the architects of Brexit, which I and others are working to overturn before immense damage is done to the UK. The Times, Sam Coates
• Feb.05.2017/ref name:"indy-2017.02.05": Dozens of Tory MPs "threatening to wreck Brexit Bill. Tory Eurosceptics have claimed 27 rebels ready to back Brexit Bill amendments tabled by Labour and the LibDems. The Independent, Rachel Roberts
• Jan.10.2017/ref name:"parl-2016.12.19": Steve Baker accepted £6,500 from the CRC to fund hospitality for ERG members + staff at an event on Dec.19.2016. "As Chair of the European Research Group (ERG), I accepted £6,500 from the Constitutional Research Council to fund hospitality for ERG members and their staff at an event on 19 December 2016". (Registered Jan.10.2017) Parliament.uk, '
• Jan.06.2017/ref name:"sb-2017.01.06": ERG: The PM's anticipated speech on the EU. In advance of an anticipated speech by the Prime Minister on leaving the EU, European Research Group Chair Steve Baker MP and Deputy Chair Michael Tomlinson MP have issued the following statement on behalf of the ERG Officers: We’ll be delighted when it’s clear... Steve Baker's Blog, Steve Baker
• Nov.26.2016: Tony Blair heads new pro-European Union movement. On Monday, Blair confirmed that he was forming a new organisation dedicated to opposing "resurgent populism" and returning politics to the "centre-ground". But public reaction was hostile, so an alternative was suggested. Alan Milburn – a top Blairite whose political journey began as a member of the Pabloite International Marxist Group and included his acting as an adviser to the previous Tory/LibDem coalition. Milburn publicly heads a group part-funded by Richard Branson 's Virgin Group and other business concerns seeking to reverse the referendum result. It is backed by Sir Clive Cowdery , the insurance millionaire who funds the Resolution Foundation think tank, and Stephen Dorrell , a former Conservative Health Secretary. The European Research Group faction is led by John Whittingdale , Iain Duncan Smith , Michael Gove , Peter Lilley and John Redwood . Its strident demands forced May's chancellor Philip Hammond onto the defensive... ( pdf version ) World Socialist, Chris Marsden
• Nov.25.2016: Letter to Donald Tusk from Michael Tomlinson. Signatories: Michael Tomlinson, Steve Baker, Suella Fernandes, Craig MacKinlay, John Penrose, Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Nuttall are signed as "Officers, ERG". Other signatories are: Lord David Blencathra, Andrew Bridgen, David Burrowed, David Campbell Bannerman, Douglas Carswell, Sir William Cash, Christopher Chope, James Celverly, Philip Davies, Nigel Dodds, Jeffrey Donaldson, Nadine Dorries, Steve Double, James Duddridge, Michael Fabricant, Marcus Fysh, Michael Gove, James Gray, Dordon Henderson, Philip Hollobone, Sir Gerald Howarth, Bernard Jenkin, Sir Edward Leigh, Peter Lilley, Jonathan Lord, Tim Loughton, Craig Mackinley, Scott Mann, Karl McCartney, Nigel Mills, Anne Marie Morris, David Nuttall, matthew Offord, Owen Paterson, john Penrose, Dominic Raab, John Redwood, Laurence Robertson, Paul Scully, Henry Smith, Iain Dundan Smith, Sir Desmond Swayne, Michael Tomlinson, Craig Tracey, Martin Vickers, Theresa Villiers, John Whittingdale, Bill Wiggin, William Wragg. www.michaeltomlinson.org.uk, Michael Tomlinson
• Nov.20.2016: Dozens of Tory MPs 'pushing to leave single market and customs union'. More than 60 Conservative MPs - including a number of former Cabinet ministers - are reportedly pushing for Britain to leave the European single market. Politics Home, Emilio Casalicchio
• Nov.19.2016: Heavyweight Brexiteers among 60 Tory MPs to demand clean break from the EU. The decision to go public with the call coincides with the relaunch of the ERG, a pro-Brexit Tory body that will keep up pressure on the Govt. Boris Johnson , Liam Fox and David Davis – dubbed "The Three Brexiteers" – are said to be far more open to leaving than Philip Hammond . In a bid to force the govt's hand, 60 Tory MPs have backed the statement: "The UK must leave the European Economic Area [EEA] and the Customs Union." Seven former Cabinet ministers backed the call, including five who served under David Cameron : Michael Gove , Ian Duncan Smith , John Whittingdale , Theresa Villiers and Owen Patterson ; and two who served under John Major: Peter Lilley and John Redwood . Eleven Labour, DUP and Ukip MPs also backed the call. Steve Baker , a Tory MP and chairman of the ERG, said: “A vote to remain in the EEA or the Customs Union is a vote to be powerless over trade and domestic regulation and therefore poorer than we otherwise can be. The Telegraph, Ben Riley-Smith, Harry Yorke
• Nov.19.2016: Dorset MP calls for Britain to leave SM as he launches new pro-Brexit lobby group. Michael Tomlinson , MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, has been appointed deputy chairman of the relaunched European Research Group, which today issued a call to the govt to withdraw from the EU Customs Union and the European Economic Area (EEA). Bournemouth Echo, Will Frampton ref name="mt-201.11.19"
• Sept.29.2016: The man who brought you Brexit. Britain’s vote to leave the EU was the grand finale of a 25-year campaign by a lonely sect of true believers. Daniel Hannan wrote the script. In Westminster, the ERG was part of a lattice of energetic, new anti-EU organisations, such as Patrick Robertson 's Bruges Group , and Bill Cash 's European Foundation . (circa 1992). The Guardian, Sam Knight
• Sept.11.2011: Conservative sceptic MPs lead anti-EU fight. Founders of a new EU sceptic Conservative movement have vowed to lead the fightback against Brussels. The Express, Kirsty Buchanan
• ^ a b c "Vacancy: ERG" For the last 5 years I have been Chairman of the European Research Group, a group of Conservative MPs who employ a researcher to help research and brief us on European issues. Our current researcher is moving on and we are looking to employ someone in his place. If you think this role might be for you the job description and how to apply can be found here: W4MPJobs . Facebook, Chris Heaton-Harris MP, May.23.2015
• ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay MPs demand 'urgent investigation' into Cabinet ministers' support for hard-Brexit lobby group. MP expense claims for subscriptions to the ERG since 2010 openDemocracyUK , Adam Ramsay, Jan.29.2018
• ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj Tory MPs' hard Brexit letter to May described as ransom note. The Guardian , Anushka Asthana, Feb.20.2018
• ^ a b Here's a Leaked WhatsApp Chat Showing Tory Leavers' Confusion About One Of Their Key Brexit Demands. WhatsApp messages show Nadine Dorries saying she'd been talking with a politics teacher about Brexit and didn't know enough about the trading relationships of the customs union's members to argue the point. BuzzFeed News , Alex Spence, Jan.27.2018
• ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc Letter to Donald Tusk from Michael Tomlinson. Human beings are not bargaining chips. www.michaeltomlinson.org.uk , Michael Tomlinson, Nov.25.2016
• ^ a b c d Theresa May Has Just Promoted The Man Who Could Have Destroyed Her. HuffPost , Owen Bennett , Jun.13.2017
• ^ Steve Baker appointed Brexit Minister .Steve Baker, the Brexit true believer who leads the European Research Group of Leave MPs, has been appointed a minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union. Guido Fawkes, Jun.13.2017
• ^ a b Fears raised "rearguard action" will KEEP Brexit Britain in EU's Custom Union. FEARS have been raised that a “rearguard action” by the Treasury will keep Britain in the EU’s Custom Union and stop the country from making new free trade deals around the world. The fears of a split in the cabinet came as it is understood that Brexit Secretary David Davis reportedly told a private meeting with the Legatum Institute think tank today that "nothing has been ruled out" with the Customs Union. Richmond MP Rishi Sunak, a former international businessman and member of the European Research Group, said: "If we stay inside, Brussels will be in charge of our trade policy, and their track record is awful." The Express , David Maddox, Jan.11.2017
• ^ About Christopher Howarth. ChristopherHowarth.uk , Christopher Howarth, accessed Mar.15.2018

Navigation menu

Personal tools.

• View source
• View history
• Random page
• List of Pages
• About WikiCorporates
• Report an error
• Support our work
• Contact page

WikiCorporates Guides

• Guide to EU Elections
• Switch Bank Account
• Switch Energy Supplier
• Guide to Funerals
• What links here
• Related changes
• Special pages
• Printable version
• Permanent link
• Page information
• This page was last modified on 7 August 2023, at 17:50.
• Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike unless otherwise noted.
• Privacy policy
• Disclaimers
• Contact WikiCorporates

What really motivates the European Research Group?

The pro-brexit alliance in the conservative party is often characterised as being obsessed with immigration. in reality, their thinking is more complex.

Various people are rumoured to be members of the ERG. But what holds the group together? Photo: Prospect composite

What is it that drives the convictions of the European Research Group (ERG), the alliance within the Parliamentary Conservative Party that is so vociferously intent on the UK leaving the EU? In December 2018 Philip Hammond the Chancellor of the Exchequer famously referred to them as ‘extremists,’ thus implying that their views were beyond the acceptable range of opinion within the Party. Yet the ERG world-view has been central to the thinking of prominent British Conservatives for many decades (and possibly many generations). 

It would be all too easy to conflate their perspectives with those of the anti-immigrant right as represented by UKIP and their fellow travellers. Yet hostility to immigration is only tangential to an anti-Europe sentiment within the party that can be traced back to at least 1945.

Even as late as the 1990s, when John Major referred to the anti-Maastrict rebels as the ‘bastards,’ immigration was not the dominant concern. It was the Monday Club, founded in 1961 by a grouping of far-right Tories including many MPs, that was opposed to immigration and went so far as to advocate forced repatriation. On Europe, however, its members were split—so much so that until 1980 it decided not to take a position on the subject.

While anti-immigrant sentiment is certainly widespread among ERG adherents, then, I would argue that it is not what really drives their ideological passion. Instead they are driven by three interrelated strands of thinking: a hostility to government and especially supra-national government; a conviction that Britain (essentially England) is inherently superior to other countries; and a distrust of reasoned compromises and bargained solutions and especially those informed by expert opinion. In will abbreviate these as anti-statism, chauvinism and anti-intellectualism.

Anti-statism 

While hostility to the role of the state is part and parcel of Conservative thinking, the ERG’s critique of government has certain unique characteristics. For although they believe that, as a general principle, the less government the better, they hold a particular contempt for certain forms of government. 

Any established authority beyond the nation state is, to them, essentially corrupt and inefficient. People who serve in such organizations as the United Nations and the EU are by definition serving their own rather than the public interest.

To the ERG this is  ipso facto  the case. For while the originators of such organizations may have had noble intentions, the lack of accountability built into their structures inevitably leads to rent seeking and corruption. And the larger the membership becomes the more corrupt the organization becomes. 

The likes of Jean-Claude Junker and Michel Barnier, therefore, are self-serving apparatchiks whose interest is to keep intact the vast organization that rewards them so handsomely.

In effect, any level of government beyond the nation state will do more harm than good. If a problem is perceived to be international in scope then only national action or market mechanisms can work to ameliorate it. This applies not just to EU wide issues such as migration, fiscal discipline or trade policy, but also more global issues such as climate change.

The ERG has an even more idiosyncratic view of the nature of the British state: only the government at Westminster is truly legitimate, for uniquely it has evolved after centuries of incremental change reinforced by hard won traditions, customs and mores. All other governments are either artifacts resulting from mistaken political expediency (the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies) or are necessary evils set up to deliver local services (local and county governments).

The latter are, to them, staffed by a lower class of politicians and officials whose policy remit and powers can be increased or diminished at the will of Westminster. The only exception within the UK is Stormont, that has a special status as the protector of the Protestant majority on Northern Ireland and which acts as a sort of surrogate Westminster designed to defend peculiarly Irish Protestant Conservative values.

By entering into a close union with 27 European countries, the British have, so the ERG believes, devalued their status by associating with states that are intrinsically inferior. These sentiments are not, of course, based on an assumption of natural superiority in intelligence, enterprise or any other human trait, but rather on the conviction that the British political system is uniquely advantaged in relation to its Continental counterparts.

Put bluntly, three of the four major Continental states—Italy, Germany and Spain—are hardly “proper” countries at all. Italy was cobbled together out of separate states as recently as the 19 th Century and has barely functioned as a workable democracy (if at all) ever since. Germany, too, was created in the 19 th  Century and for more than a hundred years thereafter was beset with the worst sort of pathologies imposed from within and without. Spain swung from despotism to unstable democracy and back to despotism for the 300 years down to 1975. 

The status of France is somewhat different—but to the Tory Brexiteers still inferior to that of Britain, for France has a long tradition of centrally-imposed dirigiste taxation and regulation. Worse, the supreme arrogance of the Grande Ècoles-educated elite that runs France has allowed them to manipulate civil society into accepting wrong-headed federalist EU innovations, such as the Schengen free travel area and the disaster that is the Euro.

Of the remaining EU states some are small, often parvenu irrelevancies (Slovenia, the Baltic States, Malta, Cyprus) while others are mired in corruption and/or incipient authoritarianism (Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland). The Brexiteers would concede that the Netherlands and the Nordic states do have ‘proper’ governments and longer traditions of democracy. But many of them are small in population or, historically, have had their sovereignty compromised by the irredentist tendencies of larger regional powers (Russia, Germany). 

In sum, the very idea that the British Parliament in London should be subservient to this rag-bag collection of countries thrown together by a self-serving and effectively unaccountable cadre of Eurocrats is tantamount to a willful betrayal of British (English) sovereignty.  

Anti-intellectualism

The third characteristic of the Tory Brexiteers is one which, to some extent, they share other members of the English political elite: a profound distrust of ‘so-called’ expert opinion.

This shows itself in a number of ways—from the outright dismissal of Treasury and academic projections of the economic effects of Brexit to a belief that radical decisions informed by clear thinking are superior to carefully thought through compromises resulting from deliberation and careful research. One aspect of this tendency is related to their anti-statist individualism: whether knowingly or not, academics engaged in forecasting have a vested interest in the resilience of their research paradigms.

Whether it is economic models, climate change projections or research into the technology enabling ‘frictionless’ border crossings, researchers will favour outcomes that advance their careers in terms of reputation, promotions and pensions. In other words, their findings should be taken with a pinch of salt and simpler alternative solutions to complex problems are readily at hand if executed in a decisive and determined manner.

There is just a touch of the Churchillian to such thinking. Churchill was notorious for his frequent dismissal of informed expert opinion, whether coming from academics or professionals. From the Sydney Street Siege, to Gallipoli, to his support for eugenics and the Gold Standard to the Norway campaign, the great man’s hubristic bravado sometimes produced appalling results. Of course, he was sometimes right, as in 1940 and his analysis of the Soviet threat to Eastern Europe. But that acknowledged, there is no doubting that when it suited his political ends he was often deeply distrustful of expert opinion.

So what Boris Johnson, David Davis, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the hard Brexiteers want is "the smack of firm government"—a term first used in the 1950s but since associated mostly with Margaret Thatcher—or policies that dismiss the reservations of the ‘wets’ and feeble naysayers and instead advances bold solutions to allegedly complex issues. To them this can produce order and clarity out of catharsis and chaos. As Boris Johnson famously claimed, if Donald Trump was in charge of Brexit there would be ‘all sorts of chaos’ that would eventually force the Eurocrats into making major concessions.

A deeply embedded way of thinking

Members of the ERG are not typical of British politicians as a whole, but they do represent a strand of thinking that is deeply embedded in British political culture. We should not underestimate their importance. It was they and they alone who were responsible for the Tory manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on EU membership.

And it is they who may yet achieve their goal of leaving the EU in the absence of a negotiated deal. Their hostility to government, chauvinism and anti-intellectualism constitute a world view that believes that firm leadership operating in a strictly majoritarian institutional context is the best combination to ensure the delivery of their  desiderata :  free enterprise, individual freedom and open international trade unfettered by statist cartels such as the EU.

Fri 26 Apr 2024

2024 newspaper of the year

@ Contact us

Your newsletters

What is the ERG and which Tory MPs are members of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Brexit group?

Members of the influential brexit research group ways have long been plotting to oust theresa may.

UPDATE: No confidence vote: What does Theresa May’s success mean for the ERG?

Theresa May is facing a leadership crisis following an exodus of Cabinet ministers in protest at the draft Brexit deal she agreed with the EU .

Jacob Rees-Mogg has taken things a step further, with the Brexiteer writing a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister to the 1922 committee , prompting a flurry of other MPs following suit .

Rees-Mogg is the chair of the ERG, a vocal alliance of pro-Brexit Tory MPs who met yesterday after Mrs May endured a difficult Commons session .

Here’s what you need to know about the influential backbench group.

What is the ERG?

The ERG is an alliance made up of a group of backbench Conservative MPs who lobby on issues surrounding Brexit .

Since January it has been chaired by Jacob Rees-Mogg .

The group has no official role in Parliamentary proceedings but is considered highly influential in shaping May’s Brexit negotiations to date.

Read more on Brexit

It is funded by public money – as with other similar groups – and is paid for by an allowance made available to MPs to put into collective research.

The group was first formed in 1992 by Michael Spicer in response to the UK’s integration into what would become the European Union through the Maastricht Treaty.

Who are the members?

It is difficult to get a definitive list of members because the group is not obliged to disclose this information.

But records of Parliamentary expenses held since 2010 reveal MPs who are members of the ERG and therefore allocate a portion of their office allowances to cover its cost.

This list reveals who is believed to have been, at one time, a member of the group:

David Davis Liam Fox David Gauke Michael Gove Chris Grayling Sajid Javid Andrea Leadsom Brandon Lewis Penny Mordaunt Bim Afolami Steve Baker Guto Bebb Andrew Bridgen Christopher Chope James Cleverly Therese Coffey Robert Courts Jonathan Djanogly Jackie Doyle-Price James Duddridge Iain Duncan Smith Charlie Elphicke Suella Fernandes Mark Field Mark Francois Chris Heaton-Harris Bernard Jenkin Eleanor Laing Pauline Latham Brandon Lewis Tim Loughton Craig Mackinlay Kit Malthouse Stephen McPartland Nigel Mills James Morris Owen Paterson John Penrose Chris Pincher Jacob Rees-Mogg Alec Shelbrooke Henry Smith Desmond Swayne Michael Tomlinson Martin Vickers David Warburton Bill Wiggin Mike Wood

It has been the subject of speculation, however, that the ERG has the support of many more MPs – with sources declaring that the group boasted a membership of around 70 MPs.

In February 2018 a letter was sent to the Prime Minister on behalf of the ERG – urging her to stick to the principles of her Lancaster House speech on Brexit – which had the support of 62 Tory MPs.

The number of signatories – many of whom do not feature on the above list of suspected ERG members – reveals the widespread support and influence the group has across the Conservative party.

Additional signatories: Lucy Allan Sir David Amess Richard Bacon Kemi Badenoch Sir Henry Bellingham Bob Blackman Peter Bone Andrew Bridgen Sir Bill Cash Simon Clarke Colin Clark David Davies Philip Davies Leo Docherty Nadine Dorries Richard Drax James Duddridge Nigel Evans Marcus Fysh James Gray Chris Green John Hayes Gordon Henderson Philip Hollobone Adam Holloway Eddie Hughes Alister Jack Sir Bernard Jenkin Andrea Jenkyns David Jones Daniel Kawczynski Stephen Kerr Andrew Lewer Dr Julian Lewis Julia Lopez Jack Lopresti Craig Mackinlay Rachel Maclean Anne Marie Morris Matthew Offord Priti Patel John Penrose John Redwood Andrew Rosindell

What would it take for the PM to be ousted?

To trigger a no-confidence vote in the party leader, 15 per cent of Tory MPs must write to Sir Graham which equates to 48 letters.

May would need the support of more than 50 per cent of Conservative MPs in the confidence vote to stay in office.

If the PM lost the vote she would not be able to stand in the subsequent leadership contest arranged by Sir Graham.

Read more on Jacob Rees-Mogg Debunking the paper championed by Jacob Rees-Mogg claiming a no-deal Brexit would boost the economy  Britain would get £80bn boost from a no deal Brexit, Jacob Rees-Mogg claims Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn’t understand what a trade deal is, says James O’Brien

Most Read By Subscribers

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The Guardian view on the European Research Group: not serious, still dangerous

T he Emperor’s New Clothes is usually cited as a parable of pricked vanity, but Hans Christian Andersen’s story has a subtle twist. Even after the child has declared that there are no magic clothes and the townsfolk have taken up his cry, the naked, shivering emperor does not turn back. He suspects the jeering crowd is right but he feels the procession must go on. He walks “more proudly than ever”.

This is the stage we have reached with the hard Brexit faction in the Conservative party. This week MPs allied to the European Research Group (ERG), chaired by Jacob Rees-Mogg, have been parading around Westminster in what they imagine to be intellectual finery. On Wednesday they wore solutions to the Irish border problem . On Monday, they sported confidence that within 15 years of crashing out of the EU without a deal , the UK would be a trillion pounds better off than if it had stayed in the club.

That claim, disputed by the overwhelming majority of economists, was taken from a report by Economists For Free Trade, a pro-Brexit pressure group. The report advertises something called a “World Trade Deal”, a fine-sounding fabric with a flaw – it doesn’t exist. It is an attempt to rebrand the notion of falling back on World Trade Organization rules. That mechanism could not prevent massive disruption to supply chains, bottlenecks at British borders, and relocation of businesses to territories inside the EU’s single market.

The ERG Tories respond to those hazards by denying that they exist and with false assertions about WTO rules. They say, for example, that it would be illegal for the EU to impose checks or raise non-tariff barriers on UK goods. On the contrary, the EU would be obliged to treat the UK as it would any “third country”. Either cynically or stupidly, hard Brexiters ignore the unique nature of the single market. They pretend that differences between British and EU standards post-Brexit would be of no consequence. It is on this basis that the ERG dismisses the need for substantial change on the Irish border. Wednesday’s report glibly declares: “Since UK and EU standards are identical and will remain identical at the point of departure, determining equivalence after Brexit should be straightforward.”

It is not straightforward. It is, in fact, one of the hardest legal questions in the whole business of disentangling the UK economy from its largest trading partner. Brussels cannot gift the UK member-level access to the single market on a vague promise that its standards might be equivalent for a while. Either there is conformity to the rules or there is not. And the whole point of Brexit, as sold by many Tories, is that divergence can be quick and drastic. In that case there needs to be a mechanism for checking, and checks happen at borders.

Mr Rees-Mogg and friends style themselves as a “research group”. They have had ample time to research Brexit proposals to rival the prime minister’s approach. Yet with only a few months to spare, their prospectus is embarrassing – or at least it should be. They are indulged by Downing Street because Theresa May does not want to provoke a challenge to her position. That tolerance gives credibility to views that do not deserve to be taken seriously. There is not much time left to negotiate a deal, so none should be wasted trying to placate people whose clear ambition is to bully the prime minister into a position where no deal is possible. Those Tories are entitled to continue in their proud procession of invisible plans, but they should not expect to be followed by anyone who understands the difficulty of Brexit and cares about a good outcome.

• European Union
• Foreign policy
• Jacob Rees-Mogg
• Theresa May

Most viewed

CREATING A SINGLE, BORDERLESS MARKET FOR RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY ACROSS THE EUROPEAN UNION

The European Research Area platform provides space for researchers, innovators, citizens, and policymakers to connect, collaborate, and access the latest information, data and resources related to the European Research Area .

EXPLORE ERA'S PRIORITIES... ACTIONS... ACHIEVEMENTS

Eu-level era monitoring report.

Get the insights of the 2023 report!

ERA PRIORITIES FOR JOINT ACTION

Check out the Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe

ERA ACTIONS

Discover the ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024

 ERA MONITORING 

Find out how the EU and ERA countries are fairing in achieving the ERA priorities!

ERA Monitoring map visualization

Research groups

EU-LIFE institutes host a significant fringe of excellent research in Europe. With over 530 independent research groups, research performed in EU-LIFE institutes provides high-level research output through relevant scientific advances and the transfer of its knowledge for the economic, environmental and social benefit of the populations.

Research at EU-LIFE institutes spans a wide range of scientific fields across the life sciences from biomedical research to biotechnology and material sciences.

Facts and Figures

independent research groups

staff members

European Research Group

The European Research Group is a research support group for the United Kingdom 's Members of Parliament who choose to join. It is an Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority -funded pooled service within the formal IPSA Scheme of MPs' Business Costs and Expenses. Serving an annual average of 21 MPs [1] including cabinet members, the group's focus is the single issue of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union . In January 2018 Jacob Rees-Mogg was elected as the group's chairman, taking over from Suella Braverman . [2]

• 3 Related Documents
• 4 References
• Sir Michael Spicer (1994–2001)
• David Heathcoat-Amory (2001–2010)
• Chris Heaton-Harris (2010–2016)
• Steve Baker (2016–2017)
• Suella Braverman (2017–2018)
• Jacob Rees-Mogg (2018–present)

The ERG has drawn criticism for its lack of transparency regarding its use of public funds to carry out research. After a report by openDemocracy found that more than a quarter of a million pounds had been claimed through MPs' official expenses since 2010, a call was made by Labour Party MPs for an inquiry to be carried out by the IPSA into the group's practices. [3] [4] OpenDemocracy's September 2017 report commenced:

Taxpayers’ money is being used to fund an influential group of hard-line pro- Brexit Conservative MPs who are increasingly operating as a “party-within-a-party”.

In response to the request, the IPSA found no breach of rules regarding expenses. [5] In addition to public funding for the service the group also receives donations. Robert Broadhurst, a Senior Researcher for the European Research Group records his employment with ERG, sponsored by David Nuttall MP, as having been 'funded by Members' subscriptions paid for from their parliamentary allowances; a donation from GR Software & Research Limited; and a donation from Norman Lamont '. GR Software & Research Limited has now been dissolved; its parent company, Pans (UK) Holdings Limited, is registered in the British Virgin Islands . Companies House lists Andrea Leadsom 's husband, Benjamin Leadsom, as a former director of GR Software & Research Limited, along with her brother-in-law, Peter de Putron .

Related Documents

• ↑ http://www.theipsa.org.uk/media/184678/pooled-services-assurance-report_final.pdf
• ↑ "Move over Ukip, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the ERG are now the real Brexit watchdogs"
• ↑ http://www.open-britain.co.uk/labour_mps_write_to_ipsa_about_use_of_public_funds_by_european_research_group
• ↑ https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/james-cusick/mps-demand-full-investigation-of-hard-brexit-backing-tory-party-within-par
• ↑ http://www.theipsa.org.uk/publications/freedom-of-information/2017-18/cas-92438/

Navigation menu

Personal tools.

• Request account
• View source
• View history
• PATREON PAGE
• Recent changes
• About Wikispooks
• Our Projects
• Community portal
• Random article
• Site Backup
• Mailing list
• What links here
• Related changes
• Special pages
• Printable version
• Permanent link
• Page information
• Cite this page
• Browse properties
• Pwiki stats
• PGP Public Key
• This page was last edited on 7 August 2021, at 04:20.
• Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike unless otherwise noted.
• Privacy policy
• Disclaimers