It is a tempting, but fundamentally false and misleading assumption that, where somebody holds a different opinion, their motives must automatically be malign or dishonest. In a free society it has to be possible for people to disagree with each other in a reasonable fashion without immediately assuming the other side is lying. The assertions in this petition fall squarely into this trap and, accordingly, the Government refutes them strongly.

This Government is one of the most transparent in the world. The third Open Government National Action Plan sets out new commitments on access to information, civic participation, public accountability, and technology and innovation. In turn these will help to ensure that transparency, openness and accountability are embedded in everything we do.

Equally, Ministers and civil servants must behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety as laid out in their respective Codes of Conduct.

The Government published information about the EU Referendum in line with previous governments ahead of the 1975 European Referendum and the Scottish Independent Referendum. If there are specific concerns about the quality or accuracy of the evidence behind the Government’s publications, there are extensive details of the independent sources for the information published on Gov.uk.

Cabinet Office