People should vote to stay in the European Union (EU) because it lets them be gay and lesbian, the leader of the Labour Party has suggested.

Speaking on a Sky News question and answer session on Monday evening, Jeremy Corbyn praised the European Convention of Human Rights, which the EU and Britain have incorporated into their own law, and suggested basic rights would be under threat if Britain votes Leave.

“Our right to free speech, our right to express ourselves, our right to be lesbian, be gay, be straight, but ever you want to be, it is very important,” he said.

The claim comes a day after Mr Corbyn admitted that Britain will never be able to cap immigration while it remains within the European Union. Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Corbyn said: “I don’t think you can have [an upper limit] while you have the free movement of labour.

“The very principle of a single market across Europe is the free movement of people. If you have the free movement of capital you have the free movement of people.”

He echoed those comments on Sky News by saying that restricting immigration from the EU would “defeat the whole point” of the single market, and also praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her “human response” in opening Germany’s borders to migrants last summer – a decision that led to over a million people entering the country.

Around 2.6 million migrants are predicted to come to the UK in the next 15 years if it stays in the EU, on top of the at least 1.6 million who have already arrived over the past decade.

A leaked government report in April admitted that EU migration was damaging social cohesion and having a “disproportionate” impact on Britain.

The report said that well-educated Eastern Europeans are “over-represented in low-skilled sectors in the UK” thus pushing out less well-educated Britons.