A senior Conservative former minister has defected from the Leave campaign days before the referendum, accusing them of spreading “hate and xenophobia”.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former Foreign Office minister, said that the recent UKIP poster showing migrants queuing to enter Europe under the slogan “Breaking Point” was the final straw and forced her to change sides.
She told The Times:
“That ‘breaking point’ poster really was – for me – the breaking point to say, ‘I can’t go on supporting this’.
“Are we prepared to tell lies, to spread hate and xenophobia just to win a campaign? For me that’s a step too far.”
The ‘breaking point’ poster sparked outcry across the political spectrum as soon as it was unveiled by Nigel Farage, with Leave campaigner Michael Gove saying it made him”shudder” when he saw it.
Warsi saw the poster as an example of the far right beliefs of the people running the Leave camp, and realised that she no longer wanted to be associated with them or their ideas.
She said:
“I look at that group of people and I think they’re not the kind of people I’d get on a night bus with. Why would I want them to run my country? I don’t want the Leave camp to be running this country and I don’t want the messages coming out of that camp to form the basis of the kind of Britain that I want to live in and to bring my kids up in.”
