Brexit voters felt the Liberal Democrats were treating them like idiots, senior MP Norman Lamb said yesterday, warning that his party risked looking like a single-issue pressure group.

Mr Lamb said the Lib Dems, who have just 12 MPs, needed to “start thinking again,” coming up with ideas to address the concerns of voters who often felt powerless in the face of bureaucracy and large corporations.

The former Con-Dem coalition minister, whose North Norfolk constituency voted Leave in last year’s referendum, said the Lib Dems should to be prepared to point out the EU’s faults and understand why people had voted to get out.