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Vote Leave campaign gets major funding boost:

EXCLUSIVE by TOM NEWTON DUNN, Political Editor

A Billionaire former Tory treasurer is taking a leading role in a new campaign to leave the EU because of his fears that David Cameron’s demands fall well short, he has revealed.

The major cross-party push, named Vote Leave, launches tomorrow.

In a blow for the PM, businessman and philanthropist Peter Cruddas is to be its chief fundraiser.

The new outfit hopes to win the right to become the official voice for Brexit ahead of the landmark In/Out referendum by the end of 2017.

It also emerged tonight he will be joined in the money-raising role by Labour’s biggest private donor, the TV shopping tycoon John Mills, and UKIP’s biggest bank roller Stuart Wheeler, who will be co-treasurers.

Speaking to The Sun, Mr Cruddas revealed why he has turned on the Conservative Leader, saying: “Getting EU reform was always a big issue for me when I was the Treasurer of the Conservative Party.

“I hoped that David Cameron would be able to deliver a really fundamental reform of our relationship with the EU.

“Sadly it doesn’t look like that is now going to happen”.

Mr Cruddas added: “At the end of the day this is about who we want to control our economy – politicians we can kick out at a general election or judges and bureaucrats in another country”.

The campaign has been gathering supporters for several months under the pressure group name ‘Business for Britain’.

But to mark its formal launch, it will also today unveil four more big names who are leaving the EU – former Northern Ireland First Minister and Nobel Prize winner Lord Trimble, founder of sports giant Reebok Joe Foster, Chairman of Foyles bookshops Christopher Foyle and prominent Green Party peer Baroness Jenny Jones.

Vote Leave already has some hefty financial firepower behind it with the support of two other British billionaires John Caudwell and Crispin Odey, plus the support of a senior MPs such as ex-Tory Cabinet minister Owen Paterson, former Labour minister Kate Hoey and UKIP’s Douglas Carswell.

A new poll commissioned by Vote Leave straight after the PM’s speech to the Tory conference on Wednesday found that unless he can end the supremacy of EU law in the UK, 53% of British voters would back a Brexit.

A rival anti-EU campaign backed by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, called Leave.EU, is contesting Vote Leave for the official status, which will be decided next year.

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