Time was when the main argument between the two campaigns in the EU referendum was about who was running the most negative show (not, of course, about the matter in hand). The Remain campaign were talking down Britain, pro-Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson complained, while the In side argued that Leave was trying to frighten people. But with just days to go, the debate has changed, and is now all about who is telling the biggest whoppers.
Yesterday Sir John Major launched his extraordinary attack on top Tories campaigning for Brexit, accusing them of speaking ‘absolute hogwash’ and ‘nonsense’ about the European Union, and arguing that ‘as the leader Boris is in a position to stop’ the dishonesty in the campaign. ‘What they have said about leaving is fundamentally dishonest and it’s dishonest about the costs of Europe,’ he said, adding: ‘And on the subject that they have veered towards, having lost the economic argument, of immigration, I think their campaign is verging on the squalid and I have said so before and I am happy to say so again.’
And David Cameron is today uniting with Harriet Harman, Tim Farron and Natalie Bennett to accuse pro-Leave Tories of ‘perpetuating an economic con-trick on the British people’.
This intensification of the blue-on-blue fighting is of course storing up an enormous problem for the Prime Minister after the referendum, if he does manage to win it. These attacks on integrity from both sides of the debate just open up the chasm in the party still further. But they don’t just do damage to Tory party unity. Two weeks of Tories telling voters that they cannot trust their own colleagues in government will make governing more generally much more difficult: why should anyone believe that just because a referendum is over, you suddenly don’t think the chap across the Cabinet table from you is a tremendous fibber? Perhaps it was better for the party when everyone was whingeing about Project Fear.
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