Names taken off Brexit campaign letter

Campaigners for Britain to leave the EU have apologised after wrongly including two leading businessmen in a list of people who had signed a letter supporting their cause.

The letter, which was published on Saturday, was signed by 250 people and co-ordinated by the Vote Leave campaign. But on Sunday, the names of Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross and Phones4U founder John Caudwell were removed from the list.

A spokesman for the campaign said Mr Ross’s name had been included in error, while Mr Caudwell had previously backed the campaign but had chosen not to add his name to this letter.

Nick Herbert, chairman of the Conservatives In campaign, said the letter was “falling apart . . . less than 48 hours after its launch”.

"Some of those named on the letter say they never actually signed it, many are not business leaders at all, there isn't a single FTSE 100 chief executive among them, and others have publicly admitted Brexit would cause severe damage to Britain's economy," he said.

Corporate figures

The leave and remain camps are battling to prove they have serious corporate figures on their side, with the impact on the UK economy a central feature of the debate ahead of the referendum on June 23rd.

Other signatories of the Vote Leave letter include former top bank boss Michael Geoghegan, hotelier Rocco Forte and JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin. Mr Geoghegan, until 2010 the chief executive of HSBC, said the financial services sector would thrive outside the EU.

But health secretary Jeremy Hunt said this weekend that if Britain votes to leave, the NHS would face "a real challenge", while former US military commander and CIA director David Petraeus warned that it would weaken EU security.

Economic uncertainty

“Years of economic uncertainty” would “inevitably mean less money for public services like the NHS”, Mr Hunt wrote in an article for the

Observer

.

In the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Petraeus wrote: "I encourage my British friends to think twice before withdrawing from one of the most important institutions that undergirds Western strength.

“A Brexit would deal a significant blow to the EU’s strength and resilience at exactly the moment when the West is under attack from multiple directions,” he said.

Leave campaigners have accused Mr Hunt and Mr Petraeus of scaremongering.

“If we vote to leave we can stop wasting money on EU bureaucrats and instead spend our money on our priorities like the NHS,” Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott said.

Mr Petraeus's remarks run counter to the views of former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, who said last week that there could be security gains from an exit.

Leaving the EU would mean Britain could leave the European Convention on Human Rights and gain more control of immigration, both of which were “potentially important security gains”, Mr Dearlove said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016