The president of the EU Commission has said he regrets not intervening in the UK’s Brexit referendum to correct “lies” about the bloc during the campaign.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Jean-Claude Juncker said it was a “big mistake” to listen to David Cameron, who he said had asked Brussels to “stay silent”.

“The mistake I made was to listen too carefully to the British government – Cameron, because the then prime minister asked me not to interfere, not to intervene in the referendum campaign.

“It was a mistake not to intervene and not to interfere because we would have been the only ones to destroy the lies which were circulated around. I was wrong to be silent at an important moment.”

But the commission president, who is nearing the end of his mandate and will be replaced in October, struck a more ambivalent tone on Brexit as it stood today.

“I don’t have fears, I don’t have hopes,” he told reporters.

“I was saying the other day that by comparison to the British parliament the Egyptian sphinx are open books. Either they stay or they will leave. If they stay, they stay. If they leave, they leave.”

During the Brexit referendum campaign, the UK Statistics Authority wrote to Vote Leave, criticising it for using a false figure claiming that the UK pays the EU £350m a week.

The campaign plastered the figure on the side of a bus and put out advertisements featuring the claim.

Meanwhile on the remain side, predictions about the economic impact of a Leave vote have been criticised as being wide of the mark.

An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Show all 20 1 /20 An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria, 31, holds her daughters, Elena, two, and baby Ioana, weeks old, in her London home A few months after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Maria was told her to go back to her native Romania whilst in hospital by an elderly English woman. “You are a foreigner, your place is not here” recalls Maria, who was stunned Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria and her husband Adi, 37, take their daughters for a walk in Hampstead Heath near their home The couple are preparing to leave Britain later this year with their two children, fed up with what Maria says is xenophobia and the rising cost of living in London Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Elena holds up British passports belonging to her and her sister. Both children have dual citizenship, but their parents do not want to apply for this despite having permanent residency in Britain Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria holds daughter Ioana, who is less than a week old, while Elena wipes a table Maria had never faced direct abuse over her nationality in her 10 years in the country until that moment at the hospital Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi spends time with his daughters Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi plays hide and seek with his daughter Elena Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Food is served Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi takes his daughter, Elena, to nursery Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi's sister, Nicoleta, 34, carries her niece Elena in a restaurant after a trip out Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi and Maria cook together at their home Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi holds his baby daughter, Ioana Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi and wife Maria take their daughters for a walk in Hampstead Heath Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Berwyn, a neighbour of the couple, who moved to the UK in the 1980s from Australia, says goodbye to Maria after a visit at her home. Berwyn has dual citizenship - Australian and Irish as she lived in Ireland for a few years before moving to Britain. She calls the family her 'dearest Christian Romanian friends' Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Religious pictures including a portrait of Arsenie Boca, a Romanian Orthodox monk, theologian and artist (top), hang on the wall at the home of Adi and Maria Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria dries Elena after giving her a bath after nursery Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria holds her baby daughter Ioana Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi works with his colleague Alexandru, who is also from Romania, for a removal company Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria holds her daughter Elena Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Neighbour, Berwyn, holds baby Ioana Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi and Maria, along with their daughters, leave St Andrews church in Kingsbury after attending a service Reuters

A Treasury analysis published a month before the referendum claimed that “a vote to Leave would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy”. This effect has yet to materialise over two years since the vote.

David Cameron’s request to Mr Juncker may have been based on the fear that any intervention from Brussels could provoke an adverse reaction. Brexiteers tried to stir up a backlash after Barack Obama, then US president, warned that Britain would be at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal.