Michael Gove and Boris Johnson were locked in a race row last night over the way they used the Australian-style points system in the immigration debate during the EU referendum.

According to a new book, Brexit campaign chiefs knew the system would not work in the UK.

But they used it in a ‘cynical and merciless subliminal barrage’ because British voters see Australia as white, not black.

The extraordinary disclosure is made in a new book about the referendum, Breaking Point, by Gary Gibbon, the Political Editor at Channel 4 News.

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Michael Gove (left) and Boris Johnson (right) locked in a race row last night over the way they used the Australian-style points system in the immigration debate during the EU referendum

Leading Brexit figures constantly praised the Australian points system for curbing immigration, even though most experts said it would not be practical or effective in Britain for geographical and other reasons.

According to Gibbon’s book, Gove and Johnson’s Vote Leave team knew this – but ignored it after polling experts stumbled upon the fact that it had huge appeal to working class voters, who regard Australia as white.

Gibbon writes: ‘The policy, as one senior Vote Leave strategist told me, was all about sending a signal to white voters.

‘Australia, along with Canada, is probably the nation most commonly perceived by Britons to be overwhelmingly “white”.

‘As a policy, my source said, it had “no relevance” to Britain’s specific needs, no particular merit. As a campaign tool it was mercilessly effective.

The extraordinary disclosure is made in a new book about the referendum, Breaking Point, by Gary Gibbon (pictured), the Political Editor at Channel 4 News

‘The cynicism is only matched by the acute political grasp.’

He describes similar telling exchanges with other Vote Leave aides. When Gibbon asked why they were pushing the Australian system when it was ‘uniquely irrelevant to the UK’, his ‘very senior source’ replied: ‘It’s just a phrase that works with people.’

Pressed to say if it was because it was meant to send a ‘subliminal message,’ Gibbon was told: ‘Yes, of course.’

Intriguingly, the aide said a similar ‘subliminal’ ploy was used to win support for Michael Gove’s controversial free schools policy during his time as Education Secretary.

The Australian immigration system was a good message for Vote Leave in the referendum ‘in the same way that Swedish schools was good for messaging for Gove’s free schools push, conveying a reasonable liberal country,’ said Gibbon’s source. ‘Focus grouping had hit upon a phrase that tempted some white, working class voters with an image of a predominantly white Australia,’ writes Gibbon.

His book says Vote Leave used ‘data analytics experts’ to mobilise public support on immigration. He writes: ‘The Leave camp had road-tested its potential to unlock the sleeping electorate, the people who don’t often turn out to vote. They trialled the messages that would connect while Remain was fumbling for a strategy.’

Gibbon says Vote Leave chief strategist Dominic Cummings told him in 2015 he was ‘hand-picking cutting-edge brains’.

The book claims mercurial Cummings, who was also one of the driving forces behind Gove’s free schools initiatives – and who loathes David Cameron – decided at the outset to ‘go for Cameron on immigration and trust’ in ‘total warfare’.

Vote Leave supporters: Last night Mr Gove said it was ‘ridiculous’ to accuse Vote Leave of playing the race card

Gibbon says a ‘Pro-Brexit Tory who worked closely with Gove and Vote Leave’ told him: ‘We weren’t meant to win. That line – “You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off” – it’s true.

‘The plan was to run Remain close enough to scare EU into greater concessions. None of us thought that we were ever going to win – with the possible exception of Dominic Cummings, who just wanted to drive a car into the Camerons’ living room.

‘It’s all such a mess. I want a second referendum now.’

In another shocking disclosure, Gibbon writes: ‘An extraordinary encounter in Westminster with one of the central backroom figures in Vote Leave. I asked if support was straying into any new cohorts? “Absolutely not,” he said. “Our people are the old, the badly educated and the poor.” ’

Last night Mr Gove said it was ‘ridiculous’ to accuse Vote Leave of playing the race card.

Breaking Point, by Gary Gibbon, is published by Haus Publishing, priced £7.99.

EXAMS FOR OVERSEAS MEDICS ARE 'TOO LAX' Foreign doctors are allowed to practise in Britain despite having an ‘unacceptably low’ standard of clinical expertise, an expert warned last night. Psychologist Richard Wakeford, a fellow of Hughes Hall at Cambridge University, said patients were being put at risk because exams for non-EU doctors were still ‘not stringent enough’. Mr Wakeford, who has decades of experience assessing GPs, said: ‘We are setting up these doctors to fail – and along the way patients will be put at risk.’ Medics from outside the EU must show a level of competence equivalent to that of UK-trained doctors at the end of their first year working in NHS hospitals. But at the moment foreign-trained doctors do not take the same exam as their British counterparts. Instead, they take tests set by the General Medical Council. Analysis by Mr Wakeford and other academics showed the pass marks for these are being set far too low. In April, The Mail on Sunday revealed 72 per cent of doctors struck off in the last six years trained abroad, even though they account for only a third of NHS doctors. Advertisement

Carswell 'joined Ukip to sabotage Farage'

Ex-Tory MP Douglas Carswell defected to Ukip in a bizarre plot to sabotage Nigel Farage’s ‘toxic’ leadership, according to a new book.

It says Carswell ‘fooled’ the Ukip leader into letting him join the party to stop his ‘awful’ views on race deterring middle-of-the-road voters from backing Brexit.

And Carswell secretly wrecked Farage’s bid to lead the official Vote Leave campaign in the referendum for the same reason.

Ex-Tory MP Douglas Carswell (pictured) defected to Ukip in a bizarre plot to sabotage Nigel Farage’s ‘toxic’ leadership, according to a new book

The extraordinary claims are made in Brexit Club, by journalist and Ukip expert Owen Bennett, who says Carswell decided it was his ‘national duty’ to ‘neutralise’ Farage.

When Carswell quit the Tories in 2014 and held a by-election in his Clacton seat in Ukip colours, Farage gave him a hero’s welcome.

But Bennett says Carswell had in fact tricked him. A plot was hatched at London’s Tate Britain gallery by Carswell and Tory Euro MP Daniel Hannan to ‘undermine’ the Ukip leader from within.

Carswell says polls proved that ‘the better Farage did, the less support there was for leaving the EU’ – the ‘Farage paradox’ as they called it.

Carswell says: ‘Angry, nativist Ukip risked being so toxic that if it ran the referendum it would do to the Eurosceptic cause what kryptonite did to Superman. That could not be allowed to happen.’

Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave, Brexit Battle Bus tour

Bennett reveals the plotters decided ‘someone had to infiltrate Ukip and neutralise the party and its leader.’ Hannan says: ‘Douglas felt he could hold his seat under pretty much any colours and prevent Ukip losing us the referendum with a negative campaign.’

Bennett says Carswell was forced to admit defeat in his subversive war on Farage when he became ‘increasingly blunt’ on immigration. However, he consoled himself by claiming credit for later plotting with Vote Leave chiefs to wreck Farage’s hopes of running the official anti-EU campaign.

By contrast, Carswell campaigned in Vote Leave alongside his former Tory colleague Boris Johnson.

Farage and Carswell have clashed ever since his defection, and the new disclosures could deepen the rift. Despite stepping down as leader, Farage remains hugely popular in the party, while there have been persistent reports Carswell could rejoin the Tories.

Brexit Club, by Owen Bennett, is published by Biteback