The biggest donor to the Leave.EU campaign has defended a decision to conduct polling on whether the death of the MP Jo Cox has changed the public’s opinion on Europe.

In an interview with LBC, Arron Banks disclosed that the campaign had conducted private polling of UK voters to make an assessment on whether the Labour politician’s killing would affect the referendum.

Presenter Iain Dale asked Banks whether he considered it to be tasteless to poll on such a sensitive issue.



“I don’t think so,” Banks responded. “We were hoping to see what the effect of the event was. That is an interesting point of view, whether it would shift public opinion.”

After being told that some tweets had taken exception with such polling, Dale asked: “Why have you even told us about it?”

Banks retorted: “I don’t see it as very controversial. I think you live in a bit of a media bubble, Iain.”

While Vote Leave is the official Brexit campaign group backed by Boris Johnson and other senior Eurosceptic Tories such as Michael Gove and Liam Fox, Leave.EU is endorsed by Ukip and was founded by Banks, a businessman and Ukip donor.

All campaigning was immediately suspended in the aftermath of the attack on Cox, and Jeremy Corbyn and David Cameron made an unprecedented joint visit to her constituency on Friday to pay their respects.

They resumed on Sunday, pledging that the manner of the campaigning would be more sober and less combative.

Privately, the remain campaign believes that the death of Cox, a strong supporter of the EU who believed immigration had enriched British society, will make it harder for their opponents to campaign as stridently as before on immigration issues.

Cox is the first sitting MP to be killed since the Conservative Ian Gow was assassinated by the IRA in 1990.



Thomas Mair, 52, from Birstall, faces charges of murder, grievous bodily harm, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possession of an offensive weapon in connection with the attack on Cox.