According to the BBC, the Electoral Commission has admitted that some ballot papers have been sent to the wrong people.

Earlier Vote Leave complained that some ballot papers had been sent to non-British EU nationals who are not allowed to vote.

Andrew Neil may not be the BBC’s official lead political interviewer (presumably BBC management are a bit twitchy about his role with the Spectator, and his past as an opinionated Murdoch editor) but there is no one at the corporation who turns up to an interview better briefed, or who is less likely to miss the weak spot in a politician’s argument. Which explains why it is so rare that he gets the chance to interview someone like David Cameron.

But he is going to do four big interviews as part of the BBC’s EU referendum coverage. One, with George Osborne, has already been announced. Now we have the final list.

Monday 6 June: Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary (remain)

Wednesday 8 June: George Osborne, the chancellor (remain)

Friday 10 June: Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader (leave)

Friday 17 June: Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary (leave)

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, has said this afternoon that Britain should stay in the EU. This is from the ECB’s Twitter feed.

He is giving a press conference. There is more coverage on our business live blog.

ITV has a full story on Angela Merkel’s intervention. Here is the key quote.

You will never get a really good result in negotiations, particularly on very important issues, when you’re not in the room and giving input.

I personally hope and wish that Britain will stay part and parcel of the European Union.

We work well together with the United Kingdom, particularly perhaps when we talk about new rules for the European Union.

We have to develop those together with the United Kingdom and whenever we negotiate that, you can much better have an influence on the debate when you sit at the bargaining table and you can give input into those negotiations.

The result will invariably be better when you have that, rather than being outside of the room.

According to ITV, Merkel also said that the UK would not get the same “quality of compromise” if it left the EU.

Merkel is implying that the UK would still be bound by single market rules if it left the EU, and continued trading with it, but that it would not have any influence over those rules.

Vote Leave campaigners have said they do not want the UK to be part of the single market. But any trade deal between the UK and the EU would nevertheless involve some sort of compliance with EU regulations.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has spoken out about Brexit.

I will post more as soon as I get proper quotes.

Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised in some quarters for not being willing to campaign alongside David Cameron for EU membership but after today’s speech any such complaints are totally superfluous. Corbyn and Cameron could never share a platform because, in relation to their views on the EU, there is virtually no overlap at all.

It is said by people who know him well that Corbyn would privately be quite happy to leave the EU (a view that he has has helped to substantiate by stressing that his position now is partly dictated by what the Labour party thinks) and some of the passages in this speech devoted to listing the benefits of the EU did sound half-hearted. But, given that he is not a Mandelsonian Europhile, it would be a great mistake to pretend that he was. Instead, Corbyn has identified a Remain argument that he can make with 100% conviction. He may not be opposed to Brexit, but does believe a Tory Brexit (ie, Brexit, combined with a Tory government likely to see this as an opportunity for a deregulatory free-for-all) would be “a disaster for the majority of people in Britain”. That’s not a case he could make credibly standing alongside Cameron.

The two men also disagree fundamentally on TTIP (the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, the proposed US/EU trade deal). Corbyn has expressed reservations about TTIP repeatedly in the past, but his commitment to opposing, or vetoing, it unless his concerns are met seemed stronger than anything said before. (Interestingly, it also opens up the question of whether a Corbyn-led government would continue to support EU membership after 2020 if TTIP were by then in place.) Corbyn was also quite powerful on the subject of immigration, arguing passionately that it was not migrant workers who undercut wages, but unscrupulous employers.

Corbyn also opened up a rift with the Tories on Remain tactics, rubbishing the Treasury’s “Project Fear” tactics and dismissing George Osborne’s warnings about the economy. Corbyn is, of course, right to say that some of the warnings from Remain have been hyperbolic, although whether is helpful to the campaign to say that now is another matter. And he was also rather vague, in his final answer in the Q&A, as to what he thought the negative consequences of Brexit would be. (See 10.56am.)

Which takes us on to the way the journalists were treated at the event, the booing after ITV’s Chris Ship asked a question about the claim that Corbyn’s campaigning has been half-hearted (see 10.36am) and the hissing at the very mention of the name Laura Kuenssberg (see 11.19am.) This has happened before, and not just at Labour events, and compared to the hazards some reporters face in the course of their work, it is trivial. But it is also indicative of a growing tendency to demonise the media which ought to be worrying if people are still reliant on them (us) to inform the public.

Here are the key points from the speech.

• Corbyn said Labour was opposed to TTIP “as it stands” and would veto it if it were in government. (See 10.29am.)

• He suggested that George Osborne’s warning about Brexit causing a year-long recession was bogus.

There are just three weeks to go until the referendum vote on 23 June, but too much of the debate so far has been dominated by myth-making and prophecies of doom. In the final stage of this referendum, as we get closer to what is expected by many to be a very tight vote, it does not help the debate over such a serious issue if the hype and histrionic claims continue or worse intensify ...

Just over a week ago, George Osborne claimed that the British economy would enter a year-long recession if we voted to leave. This is the same George Osborne who predicted his austerity policies would close the deficit by 2015. That’s now scheduled for 2021.

It’s the same George Osborne who said the British economy would be “carried aloft by the march of the makers” yet the manufacturing sector has stagnated ever since, and manufacturing employment declined.

• He said the EU should strengthen rights for workers. He identified the agency workers directive, TUPE (the Transfer of Undertakings [Protection of Employment] regulations) and zero-hours contracts as three areas where greater protections were needed.

• He said it was not migrant workers who were to blame for wages being undercut, but unscrupulous employers.

• He said Labour would re-establish the migrant impact fund, to help communities affected by the impact of immigration.

• He said the media was partly to blame for people thinking he had not been campaigning energetically for Remain. (See 10.36am.)

• He accused Cameron of abandoning his commitment to the environment.

Too often the British government has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into acting to protect our own environment. As we know, we have a prime minister who has lurched from ‘hug a husky’ when he became Tory leader to, a decade on, ‘gas a badger’ and ‘poison the bees’. “Britain has dragged its heels, so much for David Cameron’s rhetoric of ‘leading the greenest government ever’.

Q: A lot of people do not know about workers’ rights, and how they are relevant. What can we do about this? And how would you extend workers’ rights.

Corbyn says the posting of workers’ directive is important. And he says the agency workers directive needs to be toughened. And he calls for some tightening of TUPE, the transfer of undertaking (protection of employees) rule.

And he calls for tougher rules on zero-hours contracts. These are “cruel and unfair” because people do not know what hours they will get. He says he has come across far too many cases of constituents losing benefits because they did not know what hours they would be working. He says there should be basic rights across the EU. There are too many companies, especially in the fast food industry, making huge profits from the work of people on these contracts, he says.

He says Labour’s Workplace 2020 initiative is developing policies to address these problems.

• Corbyn says EU rules protecting workers should be tougher.

Corbyn is now taking questions.

Q: [From ITV’s Chris Ship] If Labour voters are key to winning the referendum, why do only half of them know the Labour party supports Remain. And can you say hand on heart you have campaigned as hard as you can for Remain?

Corbyn says it is partly down to the media, and how they report the Labour party.

This gets a loud cheer from the Labour activists in the audience.

He says he has done a great deal of campaigning. There are no no-go areas for his campaign, he says. He says come the vote no one will be in any doubt what Labour’s views are.

Corbyn turns to immigration, and he says Labour would re-establish the migrant impact fund.

On migration, we cannot deny the inevitable; we live in a smaller world. Most of us in Britain know someone who has studied, worked or retired abroad. We have reciprocal arrangements with the European Union. Our citizens, well over one million of them, live in other EU countries and EU citizens come to live and work here.

But it is not that simple, I’ve already talked about how some industries are affected by the undercutting of wages and the action that can be taken to tackle that. But some communities can change dramatically and rapidly and that can be disconcerting for some people. That doesn’t make them Little Englanders, xenophobes or racists. More people living in an area can put real pressure on local services like GPs surgeries, schools and housing.

This isn’t the fault of migrants. It’s a failure of government. The coalition government in 2010 abolished the Migrant Impact Fund; a national fund to manage the short term impacts of migration on local communities. By abolishing it, David Cameron’s Coalition undermined the proper preparation and investment that communities need to adapt.

We are clear, we would restore such a fund.

I’ve just received the text of Corbyn’s speech. Here is the passage on TTIP in full.

Many thousands of people have written to me, with their concerns about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (or T-TIP) the deal being negotiated, largely in secret, between the US and the EU.

Many people are concerned rightly, that it could open up public services to further privatisation – and make privatisation effectively irreversible. Others are concerned about any potential watering down of consumer rights, food safety standards, rights at work or environmental protections and the facility for corporations to sue national governments if regulations impinged on their profits.

I share those concerns.

A few weeks ago the French President, Francois Hollande, said he would veto the deal as it stands and to become law any deal would have to be ratified by each member state. So today we give this pledge, as it stands, we too would reject TTIP – and veto it in government.

And there is a challenge to the prime minister, if it’s not good enough for France; it’s not good enough for Britain either.

David Cameron 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.

Corbyn says many people are concerned about the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, TTIP, the proposed EU-US trade deal.

He says he has read and thought a great deal about this, and that he shares all the concerns raised.

He says the French president has also expressed concerns about it.

He says Labour would reject TTIP “as it stands” and veto it if he were in government.

• Corbyn says Labour opposed to TTIP “as it stands” and would veto it if it were in government.

He challenges Cameron to say too that he would block TTIP if it threatened public services.

Corbyn says Labour wants the EU to reform.

He says there has to be a humanitarian response to the refugee crisis.

He says the EU should use its collective negotiating power “to stop corporations taking consumers to the cleaners”.

He says he recently asked Cameron at PMQs to reform the posting of workers directive. This would stop workers being sent abroad, and being paid less than the rate paid locally. The government must back this, he says. Abuses are rare, but this loophole only benefits unscrupulous employers, he says.

He says it is not migrants that undercut wages, but unscrupulous employers. Migrant workers are often victims of the worst exploitation, he says.

• Corbyn says it is not migrants who undercut wages but unscrupulous employers.

Corbyn says the EU has boosted workers’ rights.

On rights at work, Europe through the social chapter and other directives, has delivered:

· over 26 million workers in Britain benefit from being entitled to 28 days of paid leave and a limit to how many hours they can be forced to work;

· over 8 million part-time workers (over 6 million of whom are women) have equal rights with full-time colleagues;

· over one million temporary workers have the same rights as permanent workers;

· 340,000 women every year have guaranteed rights to take maternity leave.

And it’s important to understand the benefit of these gains. It means workers throughout Europe have decent rights at work, meaning it’s harder to undercut terms and conditions across Europe.

Several Leave supporters have stated clearly they want to leave Europe to water down workers’ rights, to rip up the protections that protect work-life balance, that prevent discrimination and prevent exploitation and injustice.

That is why we say, the threat to the British people is not the European Union - it is a Conservative government here in Britain, seeking to undermine the good things we have achieved in Europe and resisting changes that would benefit the ordinary people of Britain.

A vote to Leave means a Conservative government would then be in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit. Everything they have done as a government so far means we could not rely on them to protect the workplace rights that millions rely on. A Tory Brexit negotiation would be a disaster for the majority of people in Britain.

Jeremy Corbyn is starting his speech now.

He says he wants to set out a positive case for Europe, but also a case for EU reform.

Too much of the debate has been dominated by myth making and prophecies of doom, he says.

• Corbyn says there have been too many “prophecies of doom” in EU debate.

Here is the scene at the Institute of Engineering Technology where Jeremy Corbyn is about to deliver his EU speech.

Vote Leave has also released some ICM polling about the how people view the impact of immigration on various aspects of British life.

The bad new for David Cameron is that people think, in almost every aspect of life, immigration has had a negative effect.

The good news for him is that the one exception is the economy as a whole - which is probably by far the most important category. On this measure people still think immigration has had a negative effect, but the picture is much more mixed.

Here are the figures.

People were asked: Do you think the amount of immigration from EU countries over the last 10 years has been -

For the UK

Good: 26%

Bad: 49%

Neither: 19%

Net: -23

For the NHS

Good: 19%

Bad: 55%

Neither: 20%

Net: -36

For schools

Good: 11%

Bad: 58%

Neither: 23%

Net: -47

For Housing

Good: 7%

Bad: 67%

Neither: 18%

Net: -60

For the UK economy

Good: 30%

Bad: 36%

Neither: 25%

Net: -6

For Jobs and wages

Good: 17%

Bad: 50%

Neither: 26%

Net: -33

For national security

Good: 11%

Bad: 54%

Neither: 27%

Net: -43

Today the EU referendum campaign amounts to combat by “five key questions”.

Britain Stronger in Europe have posted their “five key questions” for Leave in the form of a letter jointly signed by George Osborne, the Conservative chancellor, and Alistair Darling, his Labour predecessor. Claire posted an extract from the letter, with the five questions, at 8.02am. All the questions cover trade and the economy.

Vote Leave have got their own five questions for Remain. They are all on the subject of immigration, and Vote Leave has posed them in a news release, saying they are “the questions David Cameron must now answer”.

Here they are:

1 - Will you now admit that your EU renegotiation did nothing to limit the ‘free movement of people’ which is what most voters want?

2 - Will you now admit that your EU renegotiation will do nothing to limit pressures on hospital waiting times, class sizes or the housing crisis in this country?

3 - You promised to ensure that economic migrants from the EU would have a job offer before they came here. Why have you given up on that pledge?

4 - The British people are extremely worried about the possibility of Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey joining the EU - so why are you handing over £2 billion of taxpayers’ money to these countries? Do you still want to ‘pave the road from Ankara to Brussels’?

5 - Why do you want EU judges to be in control of which criminals we can and cannot deport?

Commenting on this, Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary, said:

When I was in government the prime minister wanted to impose limits on free movement of people from the EU, but sadly he failed. He now needs to set out how he plans to limit pressures on our NHS, schools and the housing crisis we face.

If we vote to stay in, this will get worse when Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey join the EU. British taxpayers are paying them £2 billion to join the EU despite not supporting this policy. How can he justify ignoring the wishes of the people?

Good Morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow and I’m taking over from Claire.

Liam Fox, the Conservative former defence secretary, is giving a speech this morning at the Vote Leave HQ entitled “Memories of Green? The Cost of Uncontrolled Migration.”

According to the excerpts sent out in advance, he will argue that mass migration is making it harder for young people to buy a home.

Most new immigrants move into the private rented sector which has grown as the immigrant population has grown. Competition for rented accommodation obliges all those in the private rented sector to pay high rents which take a large share of income and makes saving to buy a home even harder.

These resulting high rents and a shortage of housing make it much more difficult for young people to set up home on their own so they have to spend more time in house shares or with their parents.

And he will argue that the green belt is at risk too.

A constant unchecked flow of migration will inevitably result in more of our open spaces and natural greenery being turned over to housing.

Good morning and welcome to day three of our daily EU referendum coverage. I’ll be launching the morning briefing to set you up for the day ahead and steering the live blog each morning until Andrew Sparrow takes his seat. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.

The big picture

Today sees both David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn wheeled out for big set pieces: the opposition leader makes a speech this morning on why Labour is “overwhelmingly for staying in” (a useful reminder for some supporters), while the prime minister hits Sky News this evening for an interview and Q&A.

Cameron will be fresh from a visit to the Rainham Marshes nature reserve in Essex, where he’ll say that the RSPB and WWF are backing Remain to protect UK wildlife. Expect wellies – as essential to any political campaign as a hard-hat and hi-vis jacket.

Corbyn, in a speech at the Institute of Engineering Technology this morning, will say that Brexit would be a “disaster” threatening the rights of British workers, such as paid holiday and maternity leave.

He’ll also reiterate his opposition to sharing a platform with the prime minister (as London mayor Sadiq Khan did in Roehampton a few days ago) and other pro-Remain Tories, saying:

The threat to the British people is not the European Union – it is a Conservative government here in Britain, seeking to undermine the good things we have achieved in Europe and resisting changes that would benefit the ordinary people of Britain.

A vote to leave means a Conservative government would then be in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit. Everything they have done as a government so far means we could not rely on them to protect the workplace rights that millions rely on.

Tim Roache, general secretary of the GMB a Corbyn backer, told the Guardian the Labour leader was being “mealy mouthed” about the referendum and needed to be “bolder and braver” on the immigration issue:

These people don’t come here to sit on their backsides and claim benefits, they come here to work … It’s all right when people’s children are being taught by economic migrants, or when people’s parents are being looked after in hospital by economic migrants.

Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is the latest European leader to weigh in, hot on the heels of the intervention by Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, on Wednesday. Rajoy said Brexit would be

negative for everybody, for the United Kingdom, for Spain, and for the European Union …

Over 100,000 Spanish citizens work and live in the United Kingdom. Over 400,000 British citizens work and live in Spain. If the United Kingdom left the European Union, it would be very negative for everyone and from every perspective.

You should also know:

• A judge has given Kent police more time to investigate allegations of Tory election fraud, despite attempts by the Conservative party to block the court move.
• Ken Livingstone has blamed ‘embittered MPs’ for the row over his Hitler remarks. In a speech at the Oxford Union, he also claimed “Jeremy [Corbyn] had no say” in his suspension from the Labour party.
• George Osborne and Alistair Darling have teamed up to accuse Vote Leave of “making it up as [they] go along”.

Poll position

Sky News, hosting tonight’s questioning of Cameron, reports it has been shown internal polling by Vote Leave and ICM in which:

• 58% say they would be unhappy if current levels of EU migration continue.
• 55% say EU migration has been bad for the NHS.
• 67% say it has put pressure on housing.

All of which might be a hint about the line of questioning to expect this evening.

Separately, this by YouGov’s Anthony Wells on why there won’t be official exit polls on referendum day – and why those private polls reportedly commissioned by hedge funds might not be of much use – is an interesting read.

Diary

• Alistair Darling is on the Today programme at 8.30am, talking about his joint letter with George Osborne on Vote Leave’s “unworkable” proposals
• Jeremy Corbyn is back, with a speech on workers’ rights at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in London this morning.
• From 8pm David Cameron is quizzed live by Sky News political editor Faisal Islam and then takes questions from a studio audience, via Kay Burley. (On Friday, Michael Gove gets his turn.)

Talking point

Cameron’s refusal to face his Tory opponents means tonight’s Sky News Q&A isn’t the only stretched-out debate to be coming to our screens. A full 24 hours will separate the prime minister’s appearance tonight from the snappy comebacks of Out campaigner – and Conservative Cabinet minister – Michael Gove.

Nigel Farage will make it on to the same programme as Cameron on 7 June for ITV’s “debate”, but the two men won’t appear on-screen together. And two BBC Question Time specials – again featuring Cameron and Gove – are four days apart.

(Do read Jane Martinson on the shenanigans behind the TV non-debates.)

It all comes as Boris Johnson – fresh from setting out a post-Brexit immigration policy – insisted he was “not forming an alternative government”, despite the fact the policy was set out by Johnson (along with Gove and Priti Patel) as a pledge rather than merely an option for whoever might find themselves as prime minister after 23 June.

George Eaton in the New Statesman argues that some in the Brexit camp certainly view the referendum as a chance to oust Cameron – but also claims a number of MPs “had informed the chief whip that they would resign the Conservative whip if Gove was made deputy prime minister”.

Read these

Juliet Samuel in the Telegraph asks why the Brexiteers want to copy the Australian points system for immigrants:

A statement released by the Brexit campaign suggested repeatedly that immigration would be lower if we left the EU and adopted such a system, reducing the strain on hospitals, schools and workers who face intense competition for jobs from migrants. There is no guarantee of that …

But more important … is the principle at the centre of Australia’s system: they decide how it works. And for all the details of the policy, which the Brexiteers did not include in their statement, it boils down to one thing: our immigration policy would be decided here and not abroad. So if the British public wants a more restrictive immigration policy, it will be able to vote for a government that can deliver one. That is not possible at the moment.

Latika Bourke, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says the proposals could also make it easier for Australians to move to the UK, according to Conservative MEP and Leave campaigner Daniel Hannan:

People with Australian passports are kicked out at the expiry of two years, or less now if they don’t earn enough money in order to free up unlimited space for people who may have no connection to this country whatsoever,’ Mr Hannan told Fairfax Media after a public rally in Hammersmith.

‘I think that’s immoral, I also think it makes no economic sense,’ he said.

(This also contains the interesting nugget that there are approximately 87,000 Australians living in the UK eligible to vote in the referendum.)

Steven Erlanger in the New York Times says the referendum is “becoming as divisive and nasty as the one in Scotland” and talks to Douglas Alexander, the former Labour MP ousted in the 2015 general election, and now a campaigner for Remain:

First, [Alexander] said, ‘psychology matters more than psephology’ – ignore the polls, at least until the very end. Both telephone and internet polls are flawed when assessing support for referendums, because they are so rare, and what matters will be ‘the overriding question in people’s minds as they vote’.

So it will be vital to manage the news cycle in the last 10 days, to shape the anxieties and aspirations of voters. In Scotland, opponents of independence focused on the economic risks and the inability of the ‘yes’ side to answer crucial questions about currency and the sustainability of the oil-based economy.

Now, both sides are pushing fear.

On the issue of the nastiness or otherwise of the current debate, Wednesday’s Opinion live blog with readers is an illuminating guide.

Baffling claim of the day

The Daily Mail says Google has been “accused of burying results for [a] popular pro-Brexit website” in the little-traversed wilderness of the second page of search results. The site – EUReferendum.com – has been demoted, according to founder Richard North, and now comes behind such little-known sources as the BBC, Telegraph and the Guardian, as well as government information sites, in searches for “EU referendum”.

Celebrity endorsement of the day

A cavalcade of European cultural figures – including novelist Elena Ferrante, actors Julie Delpy, Isabella Rossellini and Stellan Skarsgård, illustrator Axel Scheffler (who also drew the cover art), singers Nana Mouskouri and Björn Ulvaeus, and, um, footballs managers Arsène Wenger and Gérard Houllier – have written to the Times Literary Supplement asking Britain to “please stay”:

We would like to express how very much we value having the United Kingdom in the European Union. It is not just treaties that join us to your country, but bonds of admiration and affection. All of us hope that you will vote to renew them. Britain, please stay.

The day in a tweet

If today were a song ...

It would be Don’t Stand So Close to Me. Sung by the Police. But also by David Cameron to Michael Gove. And Jeremy Corbyn to David Cameron. And pretty much everyone to Nigel Farage.

And another thing

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