LONDON (Reuters) - Pro-Brexit former Conservative party leaders and finance ministers said on Thursday the Treasury and Bank of England had failed to provide balanced analysis in the campaign ahead of next week’s EU membership referendum.

Former Conservative leaders Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith, and former finance ministers Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, said the economic authorities had failed to present a fair case of the consequences of leaving the European Union.

Both the finance ministry and Bank of England have said Britain could lapse into recession if it leaves the EU, and that sterling could fall sharply.

Advocates of Britain leaving the EU say these analyses fail to take into account the positives that might result, with Britain relieved of burdensome EU regulation and able to forge its own trading relationships.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney sent a barbed response to a letter from another “Leave” campaigner, Conservative Member of Parliament Bernard Jenkin, saying all public comments by Bank officials were in line with the central bank’s duties.

Jenkin said Bank officials were prohibited from making further public comment on the referendum. Carney said Jenkin’s letter “demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of central bank independence”.

Chancellor (finance minister) George Osborne’s warning on Wednesday of an emergency budget in the event of an EU exit was “born of desperation”, the former leaders and finance ministers said in a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“No responsible Chancellor would seriously propose any such thing,” they said.

“This is a shocking and cynical attempt by the Leave campaign to try to muzzle independent expert opinion, which is rightly warning of the serious dangers of Britain leaving Europe,” Stronger In Europe campaigner and Labour MP Wes Streeting said in a statement.

The rival “Leave” and “Remain” camps are campaigning ahead of the June 23 vote, with opinion polls suggesting the result will be close.