EU Referendum: Iain Duncan Smith claims Remain camp are in a 'panic' over shift in attitude towards Brexit

Former minister says Independent poll makes it clear that the public is responding to the Vote Leave message

Mr Duncan Smith has decried the amount of personal abuse he has received ( Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

Brexit-backing former minister Iain Duncan Smith has accused Downing Street and the Remain camp of “showing panic”, after a shock poll for The Independent showed a major swing in favour of Brexit.

On a visit to Harlow in Essex on Saturday, during which he was jeered by Remain backers dressed up as Boris Johnson, the former Work and Pensions Secretary claimed he was “astonished” at the level of “personal abuse”.

“They are breaking all the normal rules you'd ever make about a successful campaign,“ he said of Remain.

”You never show panic and they are definitely showing panic at the moment. This personal abuse, the old rule of thumb in politics is that once you start getting abused you must be doing something right.“

The words from Mr Duncan Smith came after an ORB poll for The Independent which gave Leave a 10-point lead when respondents’ likelihood to vote was taken into account

The survey of 2,000 people found that 55 per cent believe the UK should leave the EU (up four points since our last poll in April), while 45 per cent want it to remain (down four points).

Even when the findings are not weighted for turnout, Leave is on 53 per cent (up three points since April) and Remain on 47 per cent (down three). The online poll, taken on Wednesday and Thursday, suggests the Out camp has achieved momentum.

Mr Duncan Smith told the Press Association that the poll made it clear the public was responding to the Vote Leave message but insisted that it was “all still to play for”

Elsewhere, billionaire entrepreneur Sir James Dyson has claimed that Britain would be better off outside the EU.

Sir James said that after Brexit the UK could respond to likely tariffs on its exports by imposing its own tariffs on EU imports, bringing in an extra £10bn for the UK. He also said that freedom of movement rules within the EU had made it more difficult to hire talented engineers from outside the bloc.

The inventor, who is best known for designing a bagless vacuum cleaner, told the Daily Telegraph: “We're not allowed to employ them, unless they're from the EU...At the moment, if we want to hire a foreign engineer, it takes four-and-a-half months to go through the Home Office procedure. It's crazy.

”Why on earth would you chuck out researchers with that valuable technology which they then take back to China or Singapore and use it against us?“

Sir James added that Britain "will create more wealth and more jobs by being outside the EU than we will within it"

Pushing the case to remain in the EU, more than a dozen Nobel prize-winning scientists have warned that Britain’s place in the vanguard of global scientific endeavour would be put at risk if the country left the bloc.

In a joint letter the group of 13 leading researchers - which includes the discoverer of the Higgs boson and the inventors of graphene – say that the loss of EU research funding was a “key risk” to British science and accused Brexit supporters of being “naïve” in assuming the funding could be sustained outside the EU or replaced by the UK government.

The Nobel Prize winners’ letter, signed by Professor Peter Higgs, former Royal Society president Sir Paul Nurse, and Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov, and published in the Daily Telegraph, said the EU contained ”some of the finest minds and facilities in the world“ and invested heavily in the UK.

“The Brexit claims that the UK could still access funding from outside the EU are flawed, given such access will almost certainly be conditional on embracing the very principles Brexit rejects, especially freedom of movement,” the letter states. “Science thrives on permeability of ideas and people, and flourishes in environments that pool intelligence, minimise barriers, and are open to free exchange and collaboration.”

It comes as MPs urged the Government to bring in contingency plans to protect the UK science sector from the risk of Brexit. In a new report, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee said that the UK had already secured 15 per cent of an €80bn EU research fund – known as Horizon 2020 – which would amount to nearly £10bn. Britain is also set to be allocated a further £1.2bn in investment research and innovation projects.

Conservative MP Nicola Blackwood, chair of the committee, said that Switzerland’s decision to end free movement of people from the EU had hit its own research sector.

“When the Swiss voted to curtail free movement of people, the EU revoked access science funding and collaboration, undermining the country's science sector,” she said.

“Following lengthy negotiations Switzerland was permitted re-entry to Horizon 2020 but on much more restrictive terms…In light of this, the Government must conduct a risk analysis of the impact that a vote to leave would have on science funding and international collaboration. Ministers must put in place contingency plans to protect us from any adverse consequences for our science and innovation sector as well as consolidating any benefits.”

The Independent poll giving the Brexit camp the lead follows a number of other recent surveys – all showing a vote to leave.

However polling experts believe the Remain camp may pull back as June 23 gets closer.

They say that in previous polls voters tend to favour the status quo when they actually get into the ballot box – as opposed to what they say to pollsters.

However for the polling industry there is a lot at stake in calling the right result. Pollsters completely failed to predict the result of the 2015 General Election and will be desperate to get it right this time.

The EU referendum debate has so far been characterised by bias, distortion and exaggeration. So until 23 June we we’re running a series of question and answer features that explain the most important issues in a detailed, dispassionate way to help inform your decision.

What is Brexit and why are we having an EU referendum?

Will we gain or lose rights by leaving the European Union?

What will happen to immigration if there's Brexit?

Will Brexit make the UK more or less safe?

Will the UK benefit from being released from EU laws?

Will leaving the EU save taxpayers money and mean more money for the NHS?

What will Brexit do to UK trade?

How Brexit will affect British tourism

What will Brexit mean for British tourists booking holidays in the EU?

Will Brexit help or damage the environment?

Will Brexit mean that Europeans have to leave the UK?

What will Brexit mean for British expats?