A clear majority of British businesses, including small businesses, are pro-European. But, rather than engaging with businesses, those who express a positive view on Europe should be threatened with a “very dear economic and financial price”, said John Redwood MP. He added that he expected businesses to “keep out and not express a corporate view” about the benefits they derive from EU membership.

UKIP supporters launched a barrage of social media attacks on Sainsbury’s believing that it was backing a pro-EU vote — only to discover that the UKIP MEP who started it all had confused the supermarket chain with the British peer Lord David Sainsbury.

The Times reported in November that ‘out’ campaigners were now “buying shares in big companies whose bosses have made pro-EU statements so campaigners can attend their AGMs and demand their silence”.

The Vote Leave campaign admitted in November that it had invented a sham company so it could get access to a CBI speech and heckle. It threatened to use similar dirty tricks in the future. (The CBI has hit back!)

Countries around the world — including the US, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, India, China, Switzerland and Norway, not to mention our EU neighbours — have all urged us not to quit the EU. Brexit would have a negative impact around the world. But the Leave campaign dismiss all this advice because they want to keep the conversation “internal”.

Finance ministers from all 20 of the world’s leading economies (the “G20”) agree that leaving the EU would be a major risk for Britain as well as the rest of the world. Ratehr than engaging with the argument, eurosceptic Nigel Lawson dismissed this as countries trying to “tell us what to do” and Nigel Farage called it a conspiracy of “big governments” around the world.

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Charities insisted they “would not be gagged” after receiving “alarming” new guidance dissuading them from taking a position in the debate, even simply to point out that they rely on EU funds for their work. The guidance came from the Charities Commission — whose chair, William Shawcross, is a known eurosceptic.

The Charities Commission revised the guidance after a public outcry, but explained that the rewritten version had “no substantial changes” from the original.

UK universities strongly support keeping Britain in the EU because of the enormous boost it gives to British research and higher education. Rather than addressing their concerns about leaving, UKIP’s immediate response was to accuse them of selling out and claiming that they had no right to tell people about these benefits.

The role of the independent OBR is to provide politically neutral information about the budgetary implications of possible policies. But when it pointed out the risks of leaving the EU, eurosceptics refused to engage with the argument, instead saying they would “completely ignore them”.

Under pressure from eurosceptic MPs, the Conservative party itself is not allowed to express a view or take part in campaigning in advance of the referendum, even though the official position of the Conservative government is to recommend remaining in the EU.

Although 85% of people say they want more information about the EU vote, eurosceptics reacted furiously to the publication of a brochure laying out the government’s position. Rather than engaging with the arguments, they simply demanded it should be scrapped.

Leading eurosceptic John Whittingdale wrote to the BBC, accusing it of “cultural bias” in EU affairs and warning it that he would be watching it closely to ensure he was satisfied with its output.

Historian Timothy Garton-Ash analyses the BBC’s approach to impartiality and wonders whether informativeness is in danger of being sacrificed at the altar of neutrality.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is one of Britain’s most respected independent think-tanks. But when it analysed Britain’s economic prospects outside the EU and found (like every other independent study) that we would be significantly worse off, Vote Leave’s reaction was immediately to accuse the IFS of pushing pro-EU propaganda. The reaction split the anti-EU camp, with its lead economist saying that it was “silly” for Brexit campaigners to keep “responding to serious, thoughtful economic analysis by simply playing the man and not the ball, calling people corrupt”.

The European Commission cannot take sides in a British political decision. But eurosceptics want to go further, preventing it even from providing factual information about the EU agreements that affect Britain — despite the fact that such information is crucial to a well-informed debate. Of course, this would mean that the Commission is ‘conveniently’ banned from responding to the many myths that the eurosceptic media likes to invent about the EU.