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| * Paul Waugh |
The full Shadow Cabinet will become a campaign vehicle for the Remain side today as Jeremy Corbyn leads a photocall with his colleagues alongside trade unionists.
The message is meant to be loud and clear: Corbyn and Labour want us In the EU. But more than that it’s finally picked up a unifying theme that Angela Eagle first road-tested on ITV last week. Labour is about jobs (the clue is in the name, after all). And jobs are at risk from Brexit, they warn.
At the PLP last night Hillary Benn made another rallying call to the troops (his well-received speech earlier in the day can be seen HERE). Benn urged every Labour MP to get out and spend the last few days on the stump persuading sceptical Labour voters.
And the ORB/Telegraph poll offers a glimmer of hope for the In camp. It has Remain ahead by 49% to 44% for Leave, when all voters - rather than those most certain to vote - are taken into account. Getting out the vote will prove crucial, even more so on a summer’s day next Thursday.
Ed Balls, meanwhile, underlines the tensions within Labour with his Mirror piece. He is a strong Remainer but says “We need to press Europe to restore proper borders, and put new controls on economic migration”. Not quite the message from his old boss Gordon yesterday, who suggested it was somehow a BBC and Sun agenda to raise immigration.
Remain strategists reckon that at least two-thirds of Labour voters have to back their cause for them to win on June 23 - yet some polls show half of them aren’t sure what the party’s stance is. That’s an epic failure of messaging, however you look at it. In her excellent Times column, Rachel Sylvester quotes on Labour MP thus: “There’s a rupture between the metropolitan, liberal wing and the traditional, working-class base. The Tory splits are Westminster high politics but the Labour ones are a shifting of the tectonic plates.”
And if Labour needed any more distractions, here comes Ken Livingstone before the Home Affairs Committee at 2pm to discuss his favourite topic: anti-semitism.
At the PLP last night Hillary Benn made another rallying call to the troops (his well-received speech earlier in the day can be seen HERE). Benn urged every Labour MP to get out and spend the last few days on the stump persuading sceptical Labour voters.
And the ORB/Telegraph poll offers a glimmer of hope for the In camp. It has Remain ahead by 49% to 44% for Leave, when all voters - rather than those most certain to vote - are taken into account. Getting out the vote will prove crucial, even more so on a summer’s day next Thursday.
Ed Balls, meanwhile, underlines the tensions within Labour with his Mirror piece. He is a strong Remainer but says “We need to press Europe to restore proper borders, and put new controls on economic migration”. Not quite the message from his old boss Gordon yesterday, who suggested it was somehow a BBC and Sun agenda to raise immigration.
Remain strategists reckon that at least two-thirds of Labour voters have to back their cause for them to win on June 23 - yet some polls show half of them aren’t sure what the party’s stance is. That’s an epic failure of messaging, however you look at it. In her excellent Times column, Rachel Sylvester quotes on Labour MP thus: “There’s a rupture between the metropolitan, liberal wing and the traditional, working-class base. The Tory splits are Westminster high politics but the Labour ones are a shifting of the tectonic plates.”
And if Labour needed any more distractions, here comes Ken Livingstone before the Home Affairs Committee at 2pm to discuss his favourite topic: anti-semitism.
* Paul Waugh Is Executive Editor, HuffPost, UK.
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