EU referendum: Liam Fox warns David Cameron personal attacks could make government 'unworkable'

Backing Brexit: Liam Fox, right, campaigns for Leave at Oxford Circus

Lucy Young

21 June 2016

David Cameron has been warned by top Brexiteer Liam Fox to avoid personal attacks or risk an unworkable government after Thursday’s referendum.

Dr Fox said the Prime Minister was “less guilty” than others for allowing personal abuse to creep into the EU debate, but claimed all sides bore some responsibility.

In an exclusive interview with the Standard, he also rejected claims that a recent fall in the FTSE 100 was down to Brexit fears.

Instead he argued remaining in the EU meant the City of London would be held “hostage” to Brussels and claimed leaving was the key to solving the capital’s housing crisis.

Dr Fox spoke out on abuse following savage Tory infighting which has seen clashes and name-calling on the Tory benches.

Getting the vote out: Liam Fox, right, campaigns at Oxford Circus

Lucy Young

Asked if he thought Mr Cameron had managed to avoid resorting to such attacks, he said: “He has been much less guilty of it than others.”

He went on: “The campaign has stayed far too much into personal territory.

“There is more than enough meat in the referendum issue to satisfy political debate, we don’t need to picnic on one another.”

He reminded colleagues the government still had to govern, with Mr Cameron at its helm, on June 24.

Asked if Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had gone too far in questioning the honesty of Mr Cameron’s pledge to reduce immigration, Dr Fox said: “It’s acceptable to say you are wrong. “It’s acceptable to say you don’t understand the argument. It’s not acceptable to impugn people’s integrity or their motives.

“Both sides have been guilty at times of doing that.”

The former Defence Secretary is less balanced when discussing which side’s politicians have performed better during the campaign.

Top Brexiteers have come out of the campaign “in a positive light" and he has been “enormously impressed” by Andrea Leadsom and Priti Patel in particular.

Dr Fox said: “If you look at the Leave team, they look like they like one another an awful lot more than the Remain team.

“If it was a Disney cartoon, we’d be the ones in bright colours and they’d be the ones in black, posed as the villains.

“It’s not a nice atmosphere that the only thing you ever hear from Remain is how dark the world will be if we’re not in the EU.”

The metaphor does not extend to the Leave.EU campaigners who created a poster hours after the Orlando massacre, warning of similar attacks in the wake of a Remain vote.

Dr Fox said: “I really didn’t like it. I think you do not politicise that sort of appalling human tragedy and misery.”

The MP was speaking shortly after the FTSE had taken a tumble in the wake of strong polling for the Leave camp.

But he dismissed any claim that the drop was related to Brexit, instead claiming it had more to do with the Chinese slow-down.

Dr Fox claims The City of London is in danger because Mr Cameron “gave up” a veto over further eurozone integration, something denied by Remainers.

He said: “Sometimes I wonder whether elements of the City have got ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ where they are in love with the captors. Continued membership poses a risk to the City.

“If we remain and we’ve got no ability to veto the next treaty measures, [The City] is an absolute hostage.”

Meanwhile, “controlling the population” through tougher immigration rules that are impossible while in the EU is the key to the housing crisis.

There has been talk that his balanced conduct during the campaign may win Dr Fox a return to the frontbench. Would he take a job offer?

“I’ve never said that I wouldn’t,” he said.

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EU referendum: Liam Fox warns David Cameron personal attacks could make government 'unworkable'

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