DON’T BASH BORIS!

the campaign to remain, saying: “Our preference as a business is, of course, that the UK stays within Europe.”

Mr Cameron went on: “Obviously we have got to listen to other voices, but when we listen to businesses we are not just listening to what some big business chief might say, we are actually listening to the effect on jobs, to the effect on families’ finances, to the effect on prosperity for our country and for all our people.”

But Mr Cameron was forced to defend using a Downing Street civil servant to lobby businesses to support the pro-EU campaign after MPs heard the letter was about to be published.

Leave.EU co-founder Richard Tice said: “We remember well how many large businesses and EU-funded groups like the CBI said we should join the euro. How wrong they were.

“The truth is that despite the bullying of a prime minister who has no real business experience, it is other normal commercial factors which will determine the continued success of British businesses to invest and grow.”