JEREMY Corbyn has hit back at criticism that he is not doing enough to promote the Labour case for Britain staying in Europe, suggesting it is “unfair” and making clear he is travelling the country urging people to back Remain.
Next weekend, he will in Scotland.
The party leader responded as Lord Prescott asked: “Where’s Labour?”#
Referring to Tory internal squabbling, the Labour peer told the BBC: "It seems as if we are just enjoying the fight between them but that is not putting Labour's position; we are not putting Labour's arguments.
The peer said the party was "absolutely" failing to galvanise its supporters, admitting: "Jeremy's not a passionate man".
Lord Prescott said Mr Corbyn was right to refuse to share a platform with the Conservatives but went on: "Don't say: ‘Ah well, we all believe in Europe, let's travel on the same bus.’ Nonsense. No wonder our people are confused. Get a strong Labour voice.”
The Labour leader, asked if he was doing enough to excite supporters about the referendum, said he was puzzled by such a “very odd question,” pointing out that he had been travelling the country, making the pro-EU case and would be in Birmingham on Wednesday, Edinburgh on Saturday and Dundee on Sunday.
“We’re not giving a blank cheque to the EU,” he declared. “We want a Europe where there is solidarity of socialist parties, trade unions of people who want to see a decent society, a welfare state, an NHS, full employment, decent rights at work. We better achieve those things working together not leaving Europe to the free marketeers and big business.”
Asked if he felt the criticism against him of not doing enough to save Britain’s membership of the EU was unfair, Mr Corbyn replied: “People tell me that much of the criticism levelled at me is unfair and that fits into that category.”
Today, Labour’s Hilary Benn will hit the campaign trail to demand Vote Leave “come clean” on which of Britain’s hard-won workers’ rights it would want to scrap if Britain left the EU.
“This is a pivotal moment for Britain's workers,” the shadow foreign secretary declared. “Make no mistake, a vote to leave will put the rights that many of us take for granted in the firing line. How do we know? Because the Leave campaign have said so. They want to use a vote to leave to strip these rights away.”
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