Exposed: Cameron’s EU sham

Leak reveals PM’s anti-Brexit plot – while telling voters he could still campaign to leave

A PACT between David Cameron and big business to scare Britain into staying in the EU was exposed last night.

A leaked letter suggests the Prime Minister was plotting with a multinational firm on how to hammer home the Remain case while still claiming he was prepared to campaign to leave.

He had been telling the Commons that he ‘ruled nothing out’ unless he won concessions from the EU.

The secret ‘mobilisation’ plan involved asking FTSE 500 companies to put in their annual reports warnings about the dangers of Brexit.

The strategy was discussed in a letter from Serco boss Rupert Soames to Mr Cameron 11 days before the latter’s renegotiation deal with the EU was complete. This followed a meeting a few days earlier.

Labour’s Gisela Stuart, a Leave campaigner, accused the PM of being ‘knee deep’ in conspiracy. Serco has multi-billion pound contracts with the Government.

Tory MP Steve Baker said: ‘This is proof that big corporates are being asked to gang up on hardworking British families to try to bully them into staying in the EU. There is a coordinated attempt to use company reports as campaigning documents.’

The revelations follow another heated day in the referendum battle when:

The ex-head of MI6 said some of the migrants pouring into the EU would ‘inevi- tably carry the terrorist virus’ and could trigger a populist uprising;

Boris Johnson said uncontrolled mass immigration had led to waiting times on the NHS which are a ‘scandal’;

A report claimed that immigration is costing the UK £16.8billion a year;

George Osborne accused Leave campaigners of being conspiracy theorists.

The talks between Mr Cameron and Mr Soames – an EU supporter, who is the brother of the Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames – took place in early February.

A leaked letter Mr Soames sent to Mr Cameron afterwards, dated February 8, reveals the explosive topic of their conversation. It states: ‘There were two points I thought I might follow up on. The first is how to mobilise corporates to look carefully at the risks Brexit represents. I am working with Peter Chadlington and Stuart Rose (the head of Britain Stronger in Europe) with a view to contacting FTSE 500 companies who have annual reports due for publication before June and persuading them that they should include Brexit in the list of key risks.’

Later that month, global security firm Serco was one of 200 businesses to sign a public letter in support of EU membership.

No 10 said it did not comment on leaked documents. The meeting took place shortly before Mr Cameron delivered a speech on February 8 on the need for prison reform.

Mr Soames argued in the letter that the private sector only having 15 per cent of the prisons market was a ‘wasted opportunity’. Miss Stuart said: ‘Today George Osborne accused the Leave campaign of inventing conspiracies. Now we see David Cameron is knee deep in one.’

Serco denied there was any link between support for the EU and trying to secure state contracts.

The company said: ‘We have contracts worth around £130million a year with European institutions such as the European Commission and the European Space Agency, and it is part of strategy to build the business we do with European institutions.

‘We believe that if Britain left the EU, it would be more difficult for us to win EU government contracts, and we regard this as a risk to the business.’

Yesterday, Mr Johnson also attacked big business over the way they are lobbying to keep Britain inside the EU.

He said: ‘There is a parade of big businesses coming out from Downing Street signing letters saying that they agree with every jot and tittle of EU regulation.

‘Well of course they agree with an open border immigration policy because it means they don’t for instance have to worry too much about us getting local people in the way in which this company are doing.

‘They think they can just get a steady supply of unskilled or skilled labour from abroad and what is the result?’

Mr Soames, who is the grandson of Winston Churchill, said he would argue ‘ferociously’ for the UK to remain in the EU whatever the result of the PM’s renegotiation.

‘A wasted opportunity’