FORMER Prime Minister John Major has launched a scathing attack on leading Tory Brexit figures as he singled out Eurosceptic Boris Johnson as a “court jester” who was unfit to lead the party.

Major hit out at the “squalid” Leave campaign fronted by Johnson, UK justice secretary Michael Gove and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and suggested the senior Tory politicians represented a threat to the NHS if the UK voted to leave the EU.

The intervention came as the campaign descended into growing bitterness, with Nigel Farage coming under fire after suggesting women could be at risk of sex attacks from migrants if Britain stays in the EU.

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott also attacked Jeremy Corbyn for failing to push Labour’s case ahead of the In-Out referendum on 23 June.

Lord Prescott said so-called blue on blue assaults were “destroying the Tory party hopefully” but questioned “where’s Labour?” in the battle.

“It seems as if we are just enjoying the fight between them but that is not putting Labour’s position,” the Labour peer told BBC One’s Sunday Politics.

However, Major’s attack on Tory Brexit leaders leaves relations between the rival pro-EU and Eurosceptic wings of the party at an all-time low, with the first public vote on the UK’s place in Europe in more than 40 years now just over a fortnight away.

Major’s assault will also be seen as a throwback to his tenure as Prime Minister between 1990 and 1997, when his time in office was dogged by a series of internal rebellions on greater European integration, with Duncan Smith playing a leading role.

The Brexit campaign was accused by Major of peddling “deceitful” claims and of “misleading” the public with claims about the cost to taxpayers of remaining in the EU and warnings about risks to the economy and uncontrolled immigration.

However, in a blast at Johnson, Major said the “court jester” would not have the loyalty of Conservative MPs if he becomes party leader.

He said: “He’s a very engaging and charming court jester and a very engaging and charming public figure and he’s very likeable.

“But... if the Leave campaign led by Boris continue to divide the Conservative Party as they are doing at the present time and if Boris has the laudable ambition to become prime minister he will find if he achieves that he will not have the loyalty of the party he divided.”

Major’s attack on Johnson came as it was reported that Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson will face the former London mayor in a televised debate, just 36 hours before the referendum.

He also said the NHS would be “about as safe” in the hands of Johnson, Gove and Duncan Smith as a “pet hamster would be with a hungry python”.

Major, speaking on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show, said: “Firstly on the economy and what would happen if we actually left, the Leave campaign have said absolutely nothing to the British people and what they have said about leaving is fundamentally dishonest and it’s dishonest about the cost of Europe.

“And on the subject that they have veered towards, having lost the economic argument, of immigration, I think their campaign is verging on the squalid.”

He added: “I am angry at the way the British people are being misled, this is much more important than a general election, this is going to affect people, their livelihoods, their future, for a very long time to come and if they are given honest straightforward facts and they decide to leave, then that is the decision the British people take.

“But if they decide to leave on the basis of inaccurate information, inaccurate information known to be inaccurate, then I regard that as deceitful.”

However, Johnson dismissed Major’s stinging assessment, insisting it was “not true” that the Leave’s claims about Britain sending £350 million a week to Brussels was “fictitious” or the campaign was “squalid”.

Johnson insisted it was “absolute nonsense” he was backing Brexit out of personal leadership ambitions. He said:“Obviously there is going to be a temptation by one side or the other to try to turn it into a personality-driven conversation. My view about the EU has changed but that is because the EU has changed out of all recognition.”

Johnson also claimed the UK’s population could rise “inexorably”, potentially as high as 80 million if Britain remained in the EU.

Meanwhile, Gove said a Brexit would allow the UK Government to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, a promise made by David Cameron he has been unable to keep.

He told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “We wouldn’t have left the European Union by the end of this Parliament, but we would in due course bring it down to tens of thousands.

“I wouldn’t set a time limit for it but the ambition would be to bring it down to tens of thousands.”

Put to him that it would mean reducing both EU and non-EU immigration, Gove said: “Yes.

Meanwhile, Farage said the possibility of attacks like those seen in Cologne in Germany will be “the nuclear bomb” of the referendum campaign.

In January, reports emerged of hundreds of women being groped, robbed and intimated in the city on New Year’s Eve.

“There are some very big cultural issues,” Farage said.

Asked whether mass sex attacks could occur in the UK, he said: “It depends if they get EU passports. It depends if we vote for Brexit or not. It is an issue.”