Labour MPs unnerved by party’s low-key referendum campaign

Caroline Lucas is speaking for a number of Labour MPs with her warning about the weakness of the Labour party in the EU referendum debate. They are worried that their party is not going to be able to deliver the voters needed to keep Britain in the European Union. ‘Labour voters will not be turned out by a load of Tories,’ says one MP, though when Labourites start moaning about a lack of leadership from Jeremy Corbyn on the Labour for In side of things, they then end up accepting that actually a very involved Labour leader might not be a good thing, either, given his lack of appeal to those Labour voters.

But what would be a good thing for the party would be at least a sense that Corbyn thinks it is important for his colleagues to spend a great deal of time and effort on the campaign, and for his Commons interventions to involve Europe from time to time: James was surprised yesterday that the Labour leader still hasn’t managed to come up with a way of asking about the EU at PMQs.