A poll has highlighted the despair felt by Leave voters towards the Labour Party and the political vacuum that the referendum has created Jon Enoch/The Times

More than half the people who backed Labour in the last general election and then voted to leave the EU have now abandoned their support for the party, according to a new poll.

The scale of the damage inflicted on Labour by the EU referendum is laid bare by a new poll as prominent Labour figures, including Chuka Umunna, Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds, try to change the direction of the party on immigration. The group of former frontbenchers have called for an end to free movement, accepting that this might mean an end to membership of the single market.

The YouGov poll of 3,285 adults conducted this week found that only 48 per cent of the people who backed the party in 2015 then…