Liverpool law Professor Michael Dougan says Leave campaign was ‘criminally irresponsible’

Michael Dougan, professor of European Law at at the University of Liverpool, has released a second video criticising the Leave campaign in light of the result of the EU referendum.

He called the Leave campaign ‘one of the most dishonest campaigns this country has ever seen’ and suggested that they had caused ‘untold damage on the quality of our national democracy’.

In the video, posted on University of Liverpool’s Facebook page, he said:

“Leave conducted one of the most dishonest campaigns this country has ever seen. On virtually every major issue that was raised in this referendum debate Leave’s arguments consisted of at best misrepresentations and at worst outright deception. And by doing so – by normalising and legitimising this type of dishonesty as a primary tool to win votes, I’m afraid that Leave have inflicted quite untold damage on the quality of our national democracy.”

“I’d expect that many of the people who voted Leave on the basis of some of the things we’ve talked about will come to regret that decision. But really I’m more fearful that many of the people who voted Leave genuinely believing they were going to get the things they’d been falsely promised are only going to end up feeling more disenfranchised, more marginalised, more angry. Around half the country is going to feel like democracy has let them down and that’s a sad and really quite troubling outcome.”

He also responded to hate he received in the pre-referendum video, allegations that his motivation behind the video was down to him benefitting from EU funding were “completely untrue.” He said:

“I am an employee of the University of Liverpool and my entire salary is paid by the University of Liverpool and the University of Liverpool does not receive a penny of external funding in order to pay that salary.”

Mr Dougan made headlines earlier this week when his out-of-office email response spreader across the internet. In it the Professor, who is from Northern Ireland, commented on abusive messages sent to him by Leave supporters:

“If you have sent me an abusive message, e.g. falsely claiming that I am paid by the European Commission / that I have my snout in the EU trough / that I am only worried about saving my own job / that you hope I get deported sooner rather than later, please do not be offended if I do not treat replying to your message as a priority… If you have sent me a threatening email, or one containing racist abuse, I will report it to the police.”

Liverpool Uni getting sassy

In a Facebook comment response to a commenter suggesting Mr Dougan was funded by the EU, The University of Liverpool Facebook page said:

“Professor Dougan is an employee of the University of Liverpool. He does not work for, undertake paid consultancy for, or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this post.”