Please don’t Leave us all in the lurch

WHATEVER the result, the referendum is telling us a lot about the state of politics in this country. And it isn’t a pretty picture.

The findings of today’s ComRes poll for the Sunday Mirror show that the British people are deeply distrustful of politicians – not just what they say but what their dubious motives may be for saying it.

Just one in five voters feels that politicians have done a good job of putting their side of the European debate, but the reality is that people are wary of their approach to other issues.

That is why for many this referendum has turned into a vote on immigration, a subject far more worrying to millions of Britons than our membership of the EU.

Today, Jeremy Corbyn makes a direct appeal in the Sunday Mirror to our readers and, particularly, to Labour supporters.

He understands what a critical issue immigration is to large numbers of voters and has proposals that should help to ease the problems created.

But he also says not only that immigration brings great benefits to this country – not least in the tens of thousands who work in our NHS – but that this referendum must not be decided on the desire to curb the numbers who come here.

Apart from anything else, the Leave leaders are making the most cynical pitch ever by politicians – and that is really saying something – by promising that getting out of the EU would lead to a massive cut in immigration. It would not.

Voters are understandably distrustful of those who rule us. But to listen to those offering a siren call to some vague, undefined future outside the European Union would be making a terrible mistake.