EU referendum: Iain Duncan Smith accused of 'lying' over German veto

Iain Duncan Smith has been accused of "lying" over claims that German Chancellor Angela Merkel vetoed a plan by David Cameron to restrict migrant workers coming to Britain as part of his EU renegotiation.

Elmar Brok, a German MEP and one of the senior negotiators during the talks, insisted that a ban on migrant workers had never been on the cards and Mr Duncan Smith was "lying to his own people".

"This, I think, is just not true", Mr Brok told the BBC radio 4’s World at One.

"Britain got what is possible under these circumstances and that was a great success story.

"It is not easy to sell in countries like Poland and others that Britain got this special right and therefore Mr Duncan Smith is trying to explain to its people that Germany has a direct impact on British policy, that is just wrong. Mr Duncan Smith is lying to his own people."

Asked about The Sun's front page depicting Ms Merkel as a puppet-master controlling Mr Cameron, he replied: "This just a part of a dirty campaign and has nothing to do with reality."

His comments come after Mr Duncan Smith said Berlin exercised the "ultimate power" over what changes the Prime Minister sought from Brussels and was allowed to block the idea of a cap on foreign workers coming to the EU.

The ex-Tory leader, who quit as work and pensions secretary in March in protest at disability benefit cuts, accused Mr Cameron of being "compliant".

In an interview with The Sun, he said a key demand was ditched, at the behest of Berlin, from the draft of a key speech by Mr Cameron just hours before it was due to be delivered.

"It's like they were sitting in a room, even when they were not there. There was a spare chair for them – called the German chair. They have had a de facto veto over everything," he told the newspaper.

"I know that right up until the midnight hour, there was a strong line in there about restricting the flow of migrants from the European Union – an emergency brake on overall migration.

"That was dropped, literally the night before. And it was dropped because the Germans said if that is in the speech, we will have to attack it."

He went on: "There is no question in my mind that keeping the Germans on side was the only thing that really mattered.

"We wanted to use the Germans to work the others in the room. They had the ultimate power over it."