SENIOR Labour figures will today accuse Boris Johnson and the Vote Leave camp of trying to carry out a "fraud" on the British people as Remain sources indicated they will intensify their personal attacks on key Brexit figures in the final days to the June 23 poll.
As the likes of Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and Tom Watson attempt to persuade working class voters away from swinging to Brexit, The Herald has been told instructions have gone out from Remain camp chiefs to “play the man” in the run-in to polling day with more attacks directly targeted at Mr Johnson, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove.
The big push for Labour votes will include:
*a speech by the former Labour leader in which he will warn that senior members of the Brexit campaign want to abolish measures protecting workers' rights;
*Ms Cooper will release a report warning of the damage facing Labour heartlands if the "far right of the Conservative Party" gets its way and
*Mr Watson, the deputy leader, will release Labour analysis indicating Brexit could result in £18 billion of welfare cuts and tax hikes as the Tories impose tighter austerity measures.
In a speech in London, Mr Miliband will say: "The Leave campaign are trying to perpetrate what I can only describe as a fraud on the British people. Tories who in the last days of this contest are trying to disguise themselves in Labour clothes.
"Let's be clear what the Leave agenda would mean for working people. They want out of Europe so we can be out of the social chapter as Boris Johnson said in terms in 2012. Their competitiveness strategy for Britain is deregulation and the erosion of the rights of working people."
Ms Cooper will highlight the Stronger In report, warning that Labour supporters will bear the brunt of austerity measures imposed as a result of a post-Brexit recession.
"Britain is at risk of being taken over by the far right of the Conservative Party and Labour communities will be the victims," the former shadow home secretary declared.
"Boris's Brexit Britain would see rising unemployment, workers' rights cut and the NHS cut back, and Labour families and communities would suffer most. That is the real risk of a Leave vote."
The Labour analysis predicts cuts of 2.8 per cent in day-to-day spending by Whitehall departments in 2019/20 on top of George Osborne's existing plans and £18 billion of tax rises and curbs on welfare.
Mr Watson will say: "Working people across the UK face a double threat if we vote to Leave: a massive black hole in the public finances, and an unfair Tory Government that will make ordinary families pay for it through further cuts and tax rises.”
Brexit, he will argue, would put at risk the jobs, growth and investment that being in the EU brings to Britain.
"People like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove might be able to afford that risk but millions of working people across our country simply can't," the deputy leader will declare.
Other developments include:
*former US President Bill Clinton, backed Remain, saying he had seen the difference Britain’s leadership had made “both within the EU and as a leading representative of Europe throughout the world. I hope you will stay”;
*international investor George Soros said: "If Britain leaves, it could unleash a general exodus, and the disintegration of the European Union will become practically unavoidable";
*as MPs passed regulations to allow the deadline for registration to be extended election chiefs warned it posed a risk to the smooth running of the vote;
*think-tank NIESR said Brexit could cost some of the country's poorest households more than £5,500 if the Government attempts to balance the books through welfare cuts and
*Scottish social media analysis has shown a big surge in favour of Remain with posts across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, on blogs and forums, 61 per cent for staying and 38 per cent for leaving.
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