DAVID CAMERON admitted yesterday that the last Labour government did not cause the recession that followed the 2008 financial crash.

The Prime Minister has claimed over the past eight years that Labour had “crashed the economy.”

But he inadvertently bust the myth that helped the Tories win two general elections as he sought to scare voters into staying in the EU with a Treasury dossier of dire warnings.

It predicts that between 520,000 and 820,000 jobs would be lost if Britain leaves the EU.

House prices would also plummet by up to 18 per cent and government borrowing would rise by £39 billion, it claims.

Mr Cameron branded leaving the EU the “self-destruct option” for Britain — and claimed it would be the first time decisions taken in the country had actively caused a recession.

Speaking at a B&Q store in Hampshire, he said: “As the Bank of England has said and the IMF has underlined, and the Treasury has now confirmed, the shock to our economy after leaving Europe would tip the country into recession.

“This could be, for the first time in history, a recession brought on ourselves. As I stand here in B&Q, it would be a DIY recession.”

His comments were widely viewed as a tacit acceptance that Gordon Brown’s Labour administration played no part in the recession sparked by the 2008 banking crisis.

At the government’s daily press conference, the Prime Minister’s spokesman was asked whether Mr Cameron would apologise for peddling the lie.

And Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “I welcome the admission by David Cameron and George Osborne that the last recession was not caused by the then Labour government and that a recession post-Brexit would be a Tory recession.”

Mr McDonnell added that the report actually “underlies the weakness of the UK’s economy thanks to six years of George Osborne’s failed policies.”

Chancellor George Osborne also came under fire for apparently failing to have made any contingency plans to stop a recession.

“The Treasury report worryingly suggests that the Chancellor would respond to a possible recession as a result of Tory Brexit by doing nothing. Something UK households simply cannot afford,” said Mr McDonnell.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon compared the Treasury document’s patronising language with the tactics used during the Scottish independence referendum.

“That kind of fear-based campaigning that starts to insult people’s intelligence can have a negative effect,” she said.