Who do you blame for the rocky western economy, let’s say since 2008? Curiously, your choice may indicate your voting preference in the looming EU referendum.

There is evidence that those who would blame the banks and the governments who failed to regulate them strongly enough – or to punish them properly later –lean towards Britain remaining in the EU.

They also tend to be people living in Scotland and London, the UK’s two “Remain” strongholds.

The same research tells us that for “Brexiteers”, economic misfortune is the fault of “immigration”. This is why Vote Leave have launched a poster campaign telling us 80 million Turks are “about to join the EU”. It is another depressing sign that this campaign is spilling into questions of race and blame.

It is difficult to imagine the Right’s new faith in the Commonwealth is founded on anything but desperation. Have they really spent the last 40 years worrying about the fate of New Zealand sheep farmers or wondering why we haven’t welcomed more Africans into the country? Some chance.

Are right wing Tories against “EU-imposed” legislation because it oppresses ordinary British workers? Or because it protects them from working longer hours for lower pay? The Leave campaign’s depiction of a post-Brexit Britain is not too comforting. The idea of our pluckily going it alone and being welcomed back by “the Commonwealth” seems fanciful.

Way back when Spain and Portugal were admitted to the EU, there were scare stories about the UK being “flooded” with economic migrants stealing British jobs. The same shibboleth is revived. It is certainly true Poles and other eastern Europeans have come in numbers since 2004, a proportion of them settling and doing helpful things like boosting the economy, re-populating schools, churches and communities.

So, probably because many of us have met a hard-working East European – as a friend, neighbour, co-worker or whatever – the scare moves on to new targets. This month, no less than 12 million Turks seem poised to invade. Really?

To extend the debate to Turkey is to stir people’s worst instincts and scratch raw prejudice. Firstly, Turkey is Middle Eastern and mainly Muslim. Secondly, because of two world wars and Cyprus, we have some history of enmity. The Vote Leave campaign must be well aware of all this.

They claim Turkey is about to join the EU, an assertion some way from the truth. For good measure they say its citizens pose a threat to national security and public services, claiming that higher levels of criminality and gun ownership in Turkey would threaten Britain. For good measure, Leave add: “Since the birth-rate in Turkey is so high, we can expect to see an additional million people added to the UK population from Turkey alone within eight years.”

Wow. This may be news to the many Turkish families who have long been settled in the UK. Who knew all those restaurants and hairdressers were supporting an international conspiracy? And what about that birth-rate (actually not particularly high) ?

By far the most popular destination for emigrant Turks is, in fact, Germany. Turkish people in Britain have as much right to be here as British people in Turkey. As an aside, it is interesting that an estimated 1.2 million “Brits” living in mainland Europe do not come into the debate. What happens if we “Brexit”, do they all come home, clogging up our public services with their demands for health care and annoying everyone by complaining about the weather?

The Turkey scare is rooted, of course, in the EU’s cynical deal with the Turks aimed at relieving the weight of refugee traffic mainly from Syria and Afghanistan. But Turkey has courted the EU for decades now. Previously it had the tacit encouragement of the United States, which saw the country as a useful bulwark against the Soviet Union, and now Russia.

The barriers that prevent Turkey making real progress are the same as they have always been – its human rights record, lack of press freedom, and security. The refugee deal has done nothing to change that.

It is no coincidence the strongest support for Brexit is in those English regions with weaker economies, including the east and the south-west. There are many low paid job jobs, often taken by immigrant workers. Traditional industries, such as fisheries, feel hard done by EU membership.

A lot of people out there are angry at a lot of things. But leaving Europe won’t change that; if anything, it will worsen the economic situation. The failure to address proper EU reform, or the continuing social and economic inequalities of the UK, is at the real heart of a referendum that could tear apart both public opinion and this Westminster Government.