Roundup: Campaigners in both camps of Brexit referendum warned about making "lurid" claims

Both sides of the British referendum over EU membership went into a weekend of intensive campaign on Saturday after being given the biggest ticking-off from Westminster since battle lines were drawn.

A powerful committee of Members of Parliament (MPs), made up of MPs from both the Remain and Leave camps, has slammed the way "lurid" claims are being made about the consequences of quitting or staying within the European Union.

Political commentators were expecting the verbal clashes to become even more intense ahead of voting across Britain on June 23.

Now even the public is waiting to see whether the campaign will take heed of the tough messages issued Friday afternoon by the House of Commons Treasury Committee.

Committee chairman, MP Andrew Tyrie, in a strongly worded message posted on the Parliament website, said: "The arms race of ever more lurid claims and counter-claims made by both the leave and remain sides is not just confusing the public."

"It is impoverishing political debate. Today is the first day of the main campaign. It needs to begin with an amnesty on misleading, and at times bogus claims. The public are thoroughly fed up with them," the chairman said.

Even though the Treasury Committee is comprised of prominent Brexiteers and Remain campaigners, its report has been agreed unanimously by its members.

A Parliament spokesman said: "The committee found that Vote Leave's core campaign number, the idea that leaving the EU would give the country 350 million pounds (511.8 million U.S. dollars) a week fiscal windfall to spend on hospitals and schools, is 'highly misleading'."

The report also found that leading remain campaigners were also making false claims.

"Claims (by Remain) that 3 million jobs are dependent on continued EU membership are in the committee's view, 'misleading'. Even the claim that 3 million jobs are linked to EU trade might well lead the public, as the committee puts it, to 'form the mistaken impression that all these jobs would be lost'," it pointed out.

The committee concluded that the claim that families will be worse off by 4,300 pounds a year as a result of Brexit "is likely to be misconstrued by readers, and has probably confused them".

Other claims included, among them, the alleged savings on EU red tape and the cost of food from the leave campaign; and claims about the effect on mortgages, pensions, house prices and family incomes. Unless these claims are heavily qualified and carefully explained, they are liable to be misunderstood.

The report added that a few grains of truth accompany the mountain of exaggeration and unqualified assertion.

It said: "The balance of evidence seen by the committee strongly supports the view that there will be a short-term economic cost to Brexit.

"In the longer-term trade with the EU is likely to fall. The balance of evidence seen by the committee suggests that this will also carry an economic cost, although this is more uncertain. Much will depend on the new trade arrangements that would be put in place." Endit