Leave soars to a 10-point lead

Poll blow for Remain amid Labour panic

A POLL giving the campaign to get Britain out of the EU a tenpoint lead sparked panic in the Remain campaign yesterday.

With less than a fortnight to go until the June 23 referendum, the ORB poll put support for Brexit up four percentage points to 55 per cent, with Remain support down to 45 per cent.

It came amid mounting panic in No 10 and Labour’s high command that traditional Labour voters are backing Brexit because of anger over mass immigration from the EU.

The online poll of 2,000 people for The Independent found that Tory voters back Brexit by a margin of 62 to 38, despite dire warnings from David Cameron and George Osborne about the impact.

But, ominously for the Remain camp, 44 per cent of Labour voters also said they backed Brexit, compared with 56 per cent who want to stay in the EU – a far closer margin than expected.

The results chime with reports from MPs and grassroots campaigners across the country that large swathes of Labour’s traditional support is backing Brexit.

Mr Cameron yesterday admitted he is ‘very concerned’ about the referendum’s outcome. The Prime Minister said it was ‘very competitive’, with many voters still genuinely undecided.

The poll came as Labour was plunged into infighting over Brexit yesterday, with MPs warning that the party leadership was out of touch with voters’ concerns about mass immigration.

The party’s high command attempted another relaunch of its faltering campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

Deputy leader Tom Watson said Labour was ‘as united as we can be’ in backing Brussels, with the entire Shadow Cabinet supporting continued EU membership.

But veteran Left-winger Dennis Skinner revealed he is backing Brexit, partly because of concerns about the ‘undermining’ of wages by migrant workers.

Former Labour social security minister Frank Field warned that the party could lose another million voters to Ukip unless it started to take seriously concerns about immigration.

And leading Labour MP John Mann savaged the party leadership over its failure to address concerns about immigration.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail revealed that Labour’s main referendum leaflet does not even mention the word immigration, despite it being one of the central issues in the EU debate. Mr Mann said: ‘People have been terrified about talking about immigration. But on polling day they are going to get a big shock about how Labour members vote.’

Speaking at the second relaunch of the party’s Remain campaign, former Cabinet minister Yvette Cooper acknowledged that voters are ‘worried’ about immigration but said it should not be the focus of the referendum debate.