THE campaign to achieve Britain’s “Independence Day” from Brussels will be one of “the people against the political classes” according to Clacton MP Douglas Carswell.

“We are up against an enormous government machine, up against people who can spend 9.3 million at the drop of a hat. We are up against the powerful- Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair, David Cameron,” the UKIP MP told a public meeting in Jaywick on Friday.

“We have a lot of powerful, vested interests against us,” the MP also said, citing the City of London, bankers such as Goldman Sachs, along with lobbyists and civil servants.

At the meeting at Golf Green Hall, organised by UKIP activists Ron Reeves and Rosina Herriott, Mr Carswell then cited his reasons to Vote Leave.

Every government promises to reduce immigration, he told the 100 or so present, but “we can’t control our borders if 500 million people have a legal right to come and settle here.”

“We are not going to close our borders but have a points system like they have in Australia. We have such a ridiculous system where a qualified GP from Singapore or India will struggle to get in, but with someone without skills or even a criminal record from Bulgaria, there’s nothing we can do.”

Britain would also no longer have to send UK benefits to 20,000 living in Poland. But the international Vienna Convention meant Britons living in Spain could remain there.

The Remain campaign would seek to “frighten” people with tales food prices would go up following Brexit, or the economy would be damaged, Mr Carswell warned.

But food is cheaper outside the EU and Britain pays higher prices in the supermarket to subsidise French farmers. The economy would also be helped by saving on the £350 million membership fee every week.

“That’s enough to pay for three hospitals since the Peter Bluff Ward closure was announced. Why send millions to Brussels when we have to close wards to save a few quid? Think what we can do with it? More money for the NHS, pensions, tax cuts,” he said.

Mr Carswell said businesses tell him EU membership meant more regulations, with one in his constituency having to stop a production line due to red tape.

“The European economy is not prosperous anymore. If we stay, we are cutting ourselves off from a word of opportunity,” he said.

The MP also blamed the EU for higher energy prices, which “makes Tata steel and others uncompetitive.”

“That’s what de-industrialising Britain. That’s what’s closing Port Talbot,” he also said.

Britain also did not need to be in a political union to trade with other countries and trade would not stop as Britain buys £60 billion of more things from the EU, than we sell to it.

If politicians felt Britain running itself was “too complicated, maybe we should change the ministers while we are at it. There is nothing extreme or ridiculous about us being a self-governing people.”

Britain would also be safer outside the EU.

“When we joined we did not know the EU would open up its borders to the world. With free movement in the EU, the safe thing is to take back control,” he said.

“I think the high risk for us is to remain in an EU that cannot control its own borders, its single currency and solve the Greek debt crisis.”

Mr Carswell also warned if the country stayed in “any sense of restraint the Eurocrats have had, would be gone.”