Brexit or love: Friends & family, including PM’s wife, fighting over EU referendum

The Brexit debate is the center of major disagreements threatening friendships and family ties. Among those locked in political conflict is the prime minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron who has reportedly stopped seeing long-term friend, Sarah Vine, partner of pro-Brexit MP, Michael Gove.

The pair allegedly clashed over the issue in late February during the birthday party of Conservative chairman Lord Feldman, days after Gove chose to back Brexit, according to The Sun.

READ MORE: Project Fear gets personal: Cameron equates Brexit to ‘self-harm’

Witnesses saw Samantha Cameron, whose husband avidly backs the Remain campaign, accuse her friend of “betrayal” following the release of a column by Vine for the Daily Mail where she described private conversations with the prime minister.

“It was never going to be easy,” she wrote. “But neither of us had any idea it would be such torture either. Mr Cameron was expecting opposition from all sorts of people, but not from Michael.”

Another family quarrel has reportedly erupted between Chancellor George Osborne and his family on the upcoming EU referendum.

The politician’s aunt, Jennifer Little, apparently attacked claims made in a pro-EU pamphlet distributed to millions of households by the government, which cost the Treasury £9 million.

Referring to the 14-page booklet, the angry aunt told the Evening Standard she “didn’t believe a word of it.”

“My husband and I are very fond of George but we totally disagree with him on Brexit. No, we don’t have control of our borders and the level of migration is definitely way too high,” she said in response to the government’s stance on controlling British borders.

Osborne’s uncles Anthony Little and Peter Osborne also lambasted the Remain campaign, quite possibly causing some discontent in the family.

The family feuds come after allegations emerged suggesting tens of thousands of couples living in London could be forced to break up if Britain leaves the EU.

Sian Berry, Green Party candidate for Mayor of London said couples would be forced apart from their partners from other EU countries, should the Leave campaign win.

More than 100,000 officially recorded couples reside in London where one person from the relationship is from an EU country other than Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Berry warned that the end to freedom of movement would jeopardize relationships of thousands of lovers in the capital while Leave campaigners said the claims were “irresponsible”.