EU Leave campaign echoes Scottish independence rhetoric

A Eurosceptic Cabinet minister tore a leaf out of the campaign for Scottish independence’s playbook and accused David Cameron of displaying “a low opinion of the British people”.

Ian Duncan Smith’s claimed pro-EU campaigners were down playing the UK’s prospects outside the EU because the country is “too small, too little, too inconsequential”.

It is very similar language to that used by SNP politicians during repeated accusations that those who wanted Scotland to remain in the Union thought the country was “too wee, too poor, too stupid” to go it alone.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mr Duncan Smith launched a blistering attack on those campaigning for a vote to Remain in June’s referendum as he called for an end to personal attacks amid increasingly bitter fighting within the Conservative Party.

The Prime Minister had led a fresh assault on pro-Brexit campaigners, using a newspaper article to accuse them of wanting to take “the gamble of the century” with the UK’s future on the basis of only “extremely vague” proposals.

“I have never heard such a lot of pessimistic downsizing of Britain’s aspect,” Mr Duncan Smith told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show after Mr Cameron began a tour of the UK urging voters not to take a “leap in the dark”.

Nicola Sturgeon will today set out her vision of the positives of EU membership in a speech to around 700 people at St John’s Smith Square in London.

The First Minister will argue that Scotland and the UK should seek to reform the EU from the inside rather than be a voice outwith.

She will say: “Being part of the EU is also about solidarity, social protection and mutual support.”