BOMB CLAIM BLOWS UP ON PM

First he says economy will implode, then claims: I’m no scaremonger

DAVID Cameron yesterday made the extraordinary claim that the Brexit campaign wants to detonate a ‘bomb’ under the UK economy – then insisted he was not guilty of scaremongering.

In a broadside at Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, the Prime Minister said a vote to leave the EU would result in the pound falling, mortgage costs rising, businesses going bust and house prices ‘collapsing’.

Standing alongside Labour’s Harriet Harman at just after 10am, he likened the impact of a Brexit to an economic ‘bomb’, adding: ‘The worst thing is we’d have lit the fuse ourselves.’

Just two hours later on the BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show, the Prime Minister claimed: ‘I genuinely don’t believe there’s any scaremongering on my side’.

That claim was scorned by Tory MPs last night who said Project Fear had reached new heights.

As the Tory civil war over Europe intensified, ex-Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith attacked Mr Cameron’s rhetoric as ‘deplorable’. He said the jibe about an economic bomb was a clear sign of ‘panic’ in the Remain camp.

Brexit campaigner Mr Duncan Smith said: ‘The PM needs to think carefully what he is saying. In their panic and anger they appear to be hurling abuse around like drunks on a Friday night. At this time of tension over terrorism it seems crass to refer to bombs in the context of the debate. As someone who served in Northern Ireland I deplore this rhetoric.’ The bitter row came as: Three new opinion polls all put the Leave campaign in the lead;

The Prime Minister and Ukip leader Nigel Farage prepared to go head-to-head in a televised clash at 9pm tonight;

Business Secretary Sajid Javid wrote a joint letter with Peter Mandelson – who is loathed by many Tory MPs – to argue for Remain.

The Prime Minister triggered yet another day of Tory feuding yester- day morning, when he shared a platform with ex-Labour interim leader Harriet Harman and the current heads of the Green Party and Liberal Democrats – normally sworn political foes.

Shortly after 10am, Mr Cameron said that Brexit would mean ‘the pound falling; prices rising; house prices collapsing; mortgage rates increasing; businesses going bust; and unemployment going up’.

He added: ‘In other words: a recession… we’d face a decade of uncertainty. Think of the wider impact: fewer businesses, fewer jobs, a smaller economy and less money for our schools and hospitals.

‘Add those things together – the shock impact, the uncertainty impact, the trade impact – and you put a bomb under our economy. And the worst thing is we’d have lit the fuse ourselves.’

Iin Stratford-upon-Avon yesterday, John Longworth, former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, shrugged off the PM’s bomb warning.

He added: ‘As Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England has predicted, one possibility is that the eurozone will explode and, believe me, we don’t want to be in the same room when that bomb goes off.’

Alongside him at a warehouse distributing beauty and household products, Boris Johnson dismissed fears about the value of the pound – saying ‘the pound will go where it will in the short-term’, but the economy will see ‘fantastic success’ in the long run.

He added: ‘It is a delusion that we can somehow gain greater prosperity by bartering away our freedom and democracy.’

Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, said staying in the EU was a threat to security – and claimed the Schengen agreement ‘facilitates’ terrorism. ‘The borderless Schengen, without proper passport checks, actively abets terrorism,’ he said. ‘Now this isn’t just my view, it’s the view of Ronald Nobel, who was the secretary general of Interpol from 2000 to 2014.’

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