I am 58 years old, have worked in and around the media most of my adult life, on both sides of the press and politics fence. I thought I was no longer shockable by anything our wretched rightwing press could do. But the coverage of the EU referendum so far is taking them to fresh depths of dishonesty. It is as though Leveson never happened. Accuracy? Do me a favour; we have papers to sell, agendas to drive, scores to settle, personal interests to defend.

David Cameron has to take some responsibility. For his own political reasons, he was dragged kicking and screaming into Leveson and has failed to follow through on the inquiry’s sensible proposals for self-regulation. So part of me, the part that has seen Labour leaders get unfair treatment compared with their Tory counterparts for generations, looks at Cameron and thinks, you reap what you sow. But another part, the part that cares about Britain’s future long beyond the tenure of Cameron or any other prime minister, feels this debate is far too important for schadenfreude or party tribalism. The result of the referendum is far more important than the outcome of a single general election. The historic significance is greater.

However, more than in any such debate I can remember, large chunks of the press have totally given up on properly informing the public. The Mail, Sun, Express and Star in particular, and to a lesser extent the Telegraph and, on a bad day, the Times, are becoming propaganda sheets for one side of the argument. The Mail, whose evil (I use the word advisedly), cowardly and hypocritical editor, Paul Dacre, pockets vast EU grants on his vast Scottish estate, nonetheless allows barely a syllable in his paper that might reflect well on Europe. Rupert Murdoch has rediscovered his mojo and is now enjoying making sure every ounce of Sun ink is used to shape opinion in the direction he wants. Then the Barclays control the Telegraph from their Channel Island tax exile, and Richard Desmond’s Express papers feed a relentless diet of anti-EU front-page splashes as titillating and far-fetched as the stuff in the porn mags that helped create his fortune. By this bizarre collection of folk, or so they hope, “public opinion” is formed.

The Sun has dragged the Queen into the whole thing, taking something almost certainly never said to make a claim that she supported the Out campaign. I had a fair bit to do with the royals and the often crazy coverage of them in my time in Downing Street. Based on that experience, and her ability to shrug off so many false stories written about her, I can pretty much guarantee this: the fact the palace has made a complaint to Ipso, the so-called independent press regulator, means the story is a load of cock.

In addition to the invented stories, there is lying and misinformation by omission

It seems that Michael Gove and his rather odd collection of special advisers may be at the heart of the Queen story. But can you imagine the noise these rightwing sceptic papers would be making if a pro-EU source had persuaded the Mirror or the Guardian to run a front page headline “Queen backs in”. There were times in Downing Street when I felt parts of the media operated like a reverse Pravda. If a story fitted their agenda, it went in. If it didn’t, it was spiked. It may have been hard for them to ignore Mark Carney or the archbishop of Canterbury, so they spun against them. But others who have come out in favour of staying in the EU – including the OECD, the IMF, Shell, BMW and many more – have been almost totally ignored. In addition to the invented stories, this is lying and misinformation by omission.

Oh, and before any of you start bleating or tweeting “dodgy dossier”, the accusations against me of lying, deceit and misinformation in relation to Iraq have been thoroughly investigated by three inquiries (we await the fourth), and I have been cleared by all of them.

Now let me do something few of these rightwing hacks ever do and admit my bias. I am biased in favour of the UK staying in, partly because I have thought about it for longer than it takes to write yet another punning Sun headline or tweet that Boris should be prime minister “because he makes me laugh”. But even if I take that bias into account, if I make a strategic analysis of the campaign so far then the Out team looks like a rabble of kids running around a football pitch not sure where the ball has gone, while the In team does at least seem to have unified, clear messages and a determination to get them across.

During my time in Number 10, I can recall having to rebut stories from the rightwing rags that bent bananas and cucumbers were going to be banned; the British army was going to vanish; Cheddar cheese and Scotch whisky were going to have to be renamed; lollipop ladies were to be outlawed; we were going to have to drive on the right; Brussels was going to set all our tax levels; the British passport was to disappear; some Luxembourg or Belgian nonentity was going to replace the Queen.

In recent weeks, we have had plenty more of this, much of it peddled by Michael Gove’s former sidekick Dominic Cummings. Perhaps most insidious, he and Nigel Farage both made the outrageous – and untrue – claim that those involved in the new year sex attacks in Cologne would be free to come to the UK. (Well, they could if they had lived in Germany for eight years, had no criminal record and renounced their own nationalities.) We have also had the out campaign claiming we will have to have Arabic subtitles on our TVs.

We do not have a vibrant free press. We have a press largely owned by a small group of men (one of whom doesn’t have a vote, several of whom don’t pay tax here) who believe their views and interests are more important than the tens of millions of people on whose behalf they claim to speak and whose views they claim to represent.

I am not a huge fan of David Cameron. But at least he is fighting for what he believes in, and at least he is telling the truth as he sees it. The stakes are high for the country. But they are high for the media too. Because, frankly, if the country does vote to stay in, it will expose Dacre, Murdoch and co as impotent old men who can call the shots with all who work for them… but not with those who read what they write.

Read a longer version of this article at www.alastaircampbell.org

• Comments will be opened later on Sunday

