Top Tory tackles Treasury over “propaganda” Brexit forecasts
Former shadow home secretary David Davis has condemned the EU referendum's remain campaign, arguing that the Government is publishing “pure propaganda”.
In a forthright intervention, Davis slammed Treasury claims that a vote to leave the EU would generate a recession, and that it would leave households worse off in the long run.
Davis has long been within the Conservatives, giving up a lengthy career on the frontbenches in 2008 in a bid to spark a debate around the erosion of civil liberties.
And speaking today he lambasted the Government's forecasts: “Last Autumn, the Treasury found £27bn down he back of the sofa, only to be strapped for cash by the Spring. It cannot accurately forecast six months, Why should we believe they can forecast 15 years?”
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Davis also argued that the role of the EU in job creation in the UK is being overstated, and denied suggestions that the UK would suffer unnecessarily while it seeks new trade deals with EU members.
“They have claimed that hundreds of thousand if not millions of jobs rely on our membership. The reality is that the EU has been a destroyer of jobs across the continent, and has created next to no jobs for British people in the UK in recent years.
“They have claimed that our economic interaction with the continent will all but cease, and in the case of one over-excited minister, that it would fall to absolute zero, should we leave the EU.
The reality is that the hard-headed, pragmatic business men on the continent will do everything to ensure that trade with Britain continues uninterrupted,” he said.
Davis concluded: “The Treasury and other establishment claims that Britain's prosperity pivots on our membership of the EU is pure propaganda.”