Turning to the controversial EU-US trade deal negotiations, Jeremy Corbyn urges David Cameron to "make clear now that if Britain votes to remain this month you will block any TTIP trade treaty that threatens our public services, our consumer and employment rights and that hands over power to giant corporations to override democratically elected governments". 

He says President Hollande of France has said he would reject the current version of the TTIP deal.

Mr Corbyn says "we too would reject TTIP as it stands and veto it in government... if it's not good enough for France, it's not good enough for Britain either."

On other issues, the Labour leader says his party is committed to "bringing the railways into public ownership".

Jeremy Corbyn says a Labour government will protect EU "gains that have benefited our people, while energetically pushing for progressive reform in Europe, in alliance with our allies across the continent".

He tells supporters that migrants don't undercut wages - unscrupulous employers do.

Turning to workers' rights, the Labour leader argues that 26 million workers in Britain benefit from being entitled to 28 days paid leave per year and a limit on how many hours they can be forced to work. 

Eight million part time workers, six million of whom are women, "have equal rights with full time colleagues", he says.

In his speech to supporters, Jeremy Corbyn argues that an EU directive stopped mobile phone companies "from ripping us off if we make or receive a call abroad".

If the Conservative government repeals the Human Rights Act and opts out of the European Convention on Human Rights, "it would join Europe's only dictatorship, Belarus, as the only other country not to support universal human rights", he said.

Jeremy Corbyn continues his list of areas where the EU has improved the environment. He tells supporters that EU air quality regulations "are saving roughly 80,000 lives per year across the continent".

Jeremy Corbyn says some of the claims made by pro-Leave campaigner Boris Johnson about bananas have been "absurd".

He argued that EU regulations had improved Britain's beaches, which 40 years ago were in "a terrible state".

One in four of beaches were too dirty to swim in 25 years ago, he said, now 95% have a clean bill of health "because of tough regulations that helped people in this country and all over Europe".

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has used an appearance at the Oxford Union to blame "embittered MPs" for branding him a Nazi apologist over his controversial statements about Hitler. 

He refused to apologise for the comments and claimed Jeremy Corbyn "had no say" in his suspension from the Labour Party. 

In an appearance dominated by questions about anti-Semitism, Mr Livingstone stuck by his remarks that Hitler supported Zionism as "historical fact". 

He told members of the famous debating society that the furore was being used to deflect attention away from the Labour leader's policies. 

Opening his speech to Labour supporters, Jeremy Corbyn says with three weeks to go until the EU referendum too much of the debate has been dominated by "myth making".

He claims "the hype and histrionic claims continue". 

And he stresses that he believes the EU "has the potential to deliver positive trade" to the UK if there is "a radical reform in government to drive that agenda in Britain".

Jeremy Corbyn is giving a pro-Remain speech to supporters in London.

Concerns have been raised that Mr Corbyn hasn't done enough to rally Labour voters to back the Remain campaign, or to talk about the thorny issue of immigration. So his speech is being closely watched.

The Independent

The Independent, external reports that schools with a large number of immigrant children from the European Union outperform those without, new research suggests.

While the number of white non-British or Irish schoolchildren increased by just 1.2 per cent between 2011 and 2015 overall, some areas have experienced an individual increase of up to 30 per cent, according to data analyst group School Dash.

But rather than place extra strain on teachers, figures show that schools where pupils speak English as an additional language do in fact perform better.

The findings follow reports that white British pupils fall behind their ethnic minority classmates, external, fuelling concerns that parents do not provide enough support or place importance on academic success for their children.

Image source, Bank of England

In other news ... The final design for the new Bank of England £5 note entering circulation in September is to be revealed later.

The note will feature the image of Sir Winston Churchill and will be made of plastic rather than cotton paper.

The Bank says the thin and flexible plastic banknotes will be cleaner, more durable, and harder to counterfeit than the current paper notes.

But there is a danger, it admits, that they may initially be prone to sticking together.

Read more

The Guardian

The Guardian, external reports that two of the biggest conservation charities in Britain - the RSPB and WWF - have joined forces with David Cameron, external to urge their 1.7 million supporters to protect the UK’s environment by voting to stay in the EU.

In a joint article published on Thursday, the two charities say that “years of uncertainty” would follow a vote to leave. 

Moving the EU referendum debate on to greener terrain, the prime minister backed the charities’ call with a promise to protect the birds and habitats directives, currently the subject of a “fitness check in Brussels.

He said:

Read more, external

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Image source, Thinkstock

Withdrawal from the EU would not harm the UK economy, claims Professor Patrick Minford, a former adviser to Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

While Britain would face higher tariffs on trade with European neighbours, he says its ability to export to the rest of the world would be enhanced by the removal of "protectionist" EU barriers to trade.

Prof Minford, of Economists For Brexit, tells BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling is joining the current Conservative incumbent, George Osborne, today to challenge Vote Leave to explain their economic arguments.

Mr Darling told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the Brexit proposals were uncosted and unworkable - and need to be made clearer to voters. 

Lord Darling concedes that the issue of immigration also needs to be discussed.

Victoria Derbyshire

BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith says there are big concerns that unless Jeremy Corbyn does more to campaign for the Remain side, the EU referendum will be lost.

In a BBC interview, new GMB leader Tim Roache says the vote is one of the biggest decisions people are going to make in a generation.

Norman Smith says Mr Roache believes Mr Corbyn has to talk about immigration, but so far "we've heard zilcho about it".

Smith contrasts this approach with the Leave Campaign, which he says wants to make it a referendum on immigration.

He says former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has accused Downing Street and the Remain campaign of "showing contempt" for voters over the issue.

The Daily Telegraph

According to the Daily Telegraph's , externalAmbrose Evans-Pritchard, the Leave campaign must make a choice. He says it cannot safeguard access to the EU single market and offer a plausible arrangement for the British economy, unless it capitulates on the free movement of EU citizens. 

One or other must give, he says. If Brexiteers wish to win over the cautious middle of British politics, they must make a better case that our trade is safe. This means, he says, accepting the Norwegian option of the European Economic Area (EEA) - a "soft exit" - as a half-way house until the new order is established.

It means accepting the four freedoms of goods, services, capital, and labour that go with the EU single market. It means swallowing EU rules, and much of the EU Acquis, and it means paying into the EU budget. 

Leavers know that if they gave in to these terms, they would drive away all those other voters who want to slam the door on immigration. So the campaign has been evasive, hoping to muddle through until 23 June with the broadest possible church.

Read more from Evans-Pritchard, external