David Cameron and Boris Johnson traded blows on Brexit today after a YouGov poll found Leave to be ahead by 45% to 41%, with 11% undecided.
The Prime Minister compared leaving the EU putting “a bomb under our economy”; adding that mortgage rates will increase, house prices will fall, prices will rise, the value of the pound will fall, businesses will go under and unemployment will rise.
Johnson said the economic benefits of staying part of the single market were “wildly overstated” before adding that leaving the EU is more democratic which is a “vital ingredient of economic success”.
Cameron said: “Almost everyone now agrees, from the Governor of the Bank of England to the IMF, the OECD to the Treasury, nine in 10 economists to, yes, even some Leave campaigners, there would be an economic shock if we left Europe.
“Let’s be clear what that means: The pound falling; prices rising; house prices collapsing; mortgage rates increasing; businesses going bust; and unemployment going up. In other words a recession.”
He added: “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.”
But Johnson responded: “They [Remain] want to say that we are selling democracy – because that’s what we believe in – and they say that they are selling economics, because they think they have the stronger hand there.
“That is basically because on the Remain side of the argument, they totally get that we are winning all the democratic points.”
He added: “What they say is that that sacrifice of democracy is worth it for the economic gain.
“What I want to say to you today is that that argument is morally and practically and completely wrong, and that democracy is in fact the vital ingredient of economic success.
“It is irreplaceable and we need to restore it because it is the absence of democratic control that is having all sorts of disastrous consequences for Britain and for the whole of the EU.
“It is a delusion that we can somehow gain… greater prosperity by bartering away our freedom and democracy.”
Johnson went on to claim that leaving the EU will help the UK manage immigration and prevent it from having to bailout failings of the Eurozone.
Cameron responded on Twitter: “The Leave campaign is simply wrong to claim we will have to bailout Eurozone countries. We are not part of Eurozone bailout schemes. We also have a veto over any EU budget increases.”
