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Boris Johnson was left red-faced tonight after he was forced to admit he hadn't read a Bank of England report he'd been misquoting through the campaign.

The bottle-blonde Brexit backer blustered as he was skewered by the SNP's Alex Salmond on his claims.

At a debate organised by the Telegraph, Huffington Post and YouTube, he quoted Marks & Spencer boss Lord Rose as saying immigration pushes down wages and went on to say the Bank of England had said the same thing.

He said: "When you have large movements of labour across the EU as we are seeing, you have a compressing effect on wages. I thought that was very significant."

But former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond took him to task on his interpretation of the Bank of England's findings.

He asked: "Who in the Bank of England said that, sorry?"

Boris who backs Brexit in the EU referendum, replied: "It was a Bank of England study which said for every 10% increase in immigration there was a 2% reduction in wages."

Salmond shot back: "No it didn't. Have you read the study, Boris? Have you actually read it? It's a straight question. Have you read that study?"

Boris admitted: "I have not read that study."

Salmond went on: "Well, let's nail this, because I've had heard this from a number of Leave [campaigners]. So I've taken the trouble of reading the study. It was by Stephen Nickell and Jumana Salaheen.

"It says a 10% rise in immigration would result in one third of one pence, diminution of average wages. One third of one pence. A result of EU immigration, because that's overall immigration. EU immigration for one sector of the workforce ..."

Boris tried to interject, but Salmond said: "No, Boris, let me finish this point. After all, I went to the trouble of reading this study which you're quoting.

"One third of one pence is not 2%, Boris. That's two pence. That's six times. You see, when you come along here and proclaim "I agree with Alec about not scaremongering", and then you go on to scaremonger on wages..."

Boris asked: "Are you saying wages have gone up?"

Salmond said: "I'm saying the way to protect wages in this country is to believe in the minimum and living wage, which you don't and I do.

Lord Stuard Rose has himself spoken out tonight, to say he'd been misquoted on the matter.

He told the Guardian : “I would say this, wouldn’t I, but I was misquoted. I was asked a straight economic question … which is if labour goes down in availability, what happens to the cost of labour and the answer is simple economics, the cost of labour goes up.

“But that is not anything to do with the actual argument about whether we should or shouldn’t be in the bigger community. What we really have to be sure about is a continually growing economy, which I believe we have more chance of doing in a 500 million-person community and the largest economic bloc in the world.

“That will guarantee more jobs for everybody."