George Osborne has accused the Leave camp in the EU referendum of indulging in conspiracy theories as he insisted there was an "overwhelming consensus" among economists and world leaders that Brexit would be bad for the UK.
Mr Osborne was joined by former adversaries Ed Balls and Sir Vince Cable at Stansted Airport, where he said that 450 jobs and almost £1 billion in investment announced by Ryanair would be "at risk if we left the EU".
The Chancellor was speaking as more than 300 business leaders signed a letter urging Britain to vote to leave the EU in the June 23 referendum, arguing that the UK's competitiveness is being undermined by its membership.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they argue that businesses will be "free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs" if they are unconstrained by EU rules.
But Mr Osborne said that new Treasury analysis showed that if the UK was forced to rely on World Trade Organisation rules following Brexit, it could expect to lose trade worth £200 billion a year and overseas investment worth £200 billion within 15 years.
Recent days had seen the emergence of a consensus shared by observers ranging from the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund to the OECD and US president Barack Obama that "Britain will be poorer and British people will be poorer" if the UK votes to leave the EU, said the Chancellor.
And he accused the Leave camp of responding by treating the warnings as "a massive conspiracy".
"That's everyone from Mark Carney to Christine Lagarde to Barack Obama to the entire editorial team at ITV to the staff at the IMF and OECD, to hundreds of economists, to a majority of leaders of small, medium and large firms - they think they are all part of some global stitch-up to give misinformation to the British people," said Mr Osborne.
"The next thing we know, the Leave camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings, kidnapping Shergar and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster.
"The response to the sober economic warnings from around the world by those who want to leave the EU has not been credible or serious."
