Spotlight: Rival camps intensify campaigning ahead of Brexit referendum

Supporters of Britain's exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU) and those against it intensified their campaigns on Saturday as the referendum on the issue draws near.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned local voters that leaving the EU was the "last thing the economy needs" and would be a vote for recession, Sky News reported on Saturday.

Cameron made the remarks at an event in his own Witney constituency in Oxfordshire.

Economic security is the single most important thing for people to consider, and none of the arguments for Brexit are "able to counter the immediate and sustained hit that we would suffer to our economy" if the UK leaves the EU, the broadcaster quoted Cameron as saying.

Addressing voters on the biggest day of campaigning yet, dubbed Super Saturday, Cameron said: "If we vote to leave on 23 June we will be voting for higher prices, we will be voting for fewer jobs, we will be voting for lower growth, we will be voting potentially for a recession. That is the last thing our economy needs."

Britain will hold the Brexit referendum on June 23. With less than six weeks left, polls show the "Remain" and "Leave" camps are neck-to-neck.

"Leave" forces led by former London mayor Boris Johnson believe Brexit would free up business and enable the country to negotiate its own trade deals.

The UK will "prosper and thrive and flourish" outside the EU, Johnson said on the campaign trail in Bristol on Saturday.

He said those in the "Remain" camp, along with the international financial institutions and foreign officials who have warned of economic decline, were "just the establishment trying to scare the pants off people because of vested interests."

Grassroots campaigns by both supporters and opposers of Brexit were seen across Britain Saturday.

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde on Friday warned that if the UK left the EU, Britain could suffer a stock market crash and a fall in housing prices.

"We have looked at all the scenarios. We have done our homework and we haven't found anything positive to say about a Brexit vote," Lagarde told a press conference at the UK Treasury in London held to launch the IMF's annual assessment of the British economy.

An IMF report said negative effects would be felt in the short term, but it also predicted long-term problems, including the downgrading of London as a global financial center, and the transfer of London's dominant foreign exchange market structures to within the eurozone.

The Bank of England said on Thursday it would keep its main interest rate at 0.50 percent amid concerns about the country's economy ahead of the Brexit.

The bank also issued an unprecedented warning that the UK economy could endure "materially lower growth...notably higher inflation" and "rises in unemployment" in case of a yes vote on Brexit.

In such a scenario, the British pound could fall "perhaps sharply", the bank said in its quarterly economic report.

It blamed half of the 9.0-percent fall in the value of the pound since November on a referendum effect.

The report also noted that the referendum itself was already negatively affecting growth as the forecast for the current quarter was lowered from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent, the slowest growth since the eurozone crisis. Endi