Remember the Brexit 50p? ‘No coins have actually been minted’

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Royal Mint has revealed that despite Boris Johnson’s constant insistence that we will leave the EU “do or die” on October 31, the coin is still not in production.

The coin is already on its second version after Theresa May requested an extension to Article 50, rendering the previous leaving date of March 29 inaccurate.

The FOI request, which was submitted by London-based “concerned citizen” Ben Nelmes, asked for the latest figures on the coins.

Nelmes also asked for any correspondence between the Royal Mint, the Cabinet Office, and the Treasury about the matter.

The Royal Mint’s information team responded that as of October 3, “No coins have actually been minted”.

They added that around 1,000 “trial coins” have been produced.

The Treasury may well be seeking to prevent the embarassment from earlier this year when the entire project had to be halted in order to change the date on the coin.

WATCH: Plans for special Brexit 50p coin put on holdAfter that instance, the Cabinet Office said it would meet again in October to discuss the coin.

But the Mint has said it won’t release its correspondence with the Treasury over the question until after they were sure the information would not “cause prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs”.

“We do hold information falling within the terms of your request, however we need more time to consider,” said a spokesperson.

The spokesperson referred to a clause of the FOI Act which allows it to hold back if it feels “the balance of the public interest” would be affected.

In cases “where public authorities have to consider the balance of the public interest in relation to a request, they do not have to comply with the request until such time as is reasonable in the circumstances”, explained the spokesperson.

The Mint’s information team also said it holds no correspondence with the Cabinet Office on the coin.