Boris Johnson to blast Labour for Brexit cop-out in final push for 'red wall' seats as election week arrives

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is going after Labour leave-voters.
AP
Rebecca Speare-Cole8 December 2019
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The Prime Minister will blast Labour for sticking "two fingers up to the public" on Brexit during his tour of Labour Leave-voting seats.

In a bid to help crack the so-called "red wall" of Labour seats across the North of England and deliver a Conservative majority, Boris Johnson will spend Monday in the Leave-voting regions of the Humber and Wearside.

The PM plans to visit every region in the country before polling day, taking in the likes of North Wales, West Yorkshire, East Anglia and the South West over the next four days.

In the city of Sunderland - where the full extent of the swing towards Leave was seen for the first time on referendum night - Mr Johnson will tell North East voters that it is Labour that has "let you down most of all" on Brexit.

Boris Johnson insists the leaked documents are "wrong".
PA

"Under Jeremy Corbyn, they promised to honour the result of the referendum - before voting against Brexit every chance they had," the Conservative Party leader will say.

"They won their seats on a false prospectus and then stuck two fingers up to the public.

"Now they are proposing another referendum - this time rigging the result by extending the franchise to two million EU citizens.

"It's been the great betrayal, orchestrated from Islington by politicians who sneer at your values and ignore your votes."

All three MPs representing Sunderland and Washington are standing on a ticket of holding a second referendum on a Labour Brexit deal.

Car manufacturer Nissan, which employs 7,000 people in the city, has spoken out against the threat of a no-deal Brexit - an outcome that remains a possibility at the end of the transition period.

In Sunderland, Mr Johnson is planning to tell Leavers that it was in their city that the Brexit "roar" was first heard.

"It's now been 1,264 days since Sunderland's roar was heard on the night of June 23, 2016," the Vote Leave campaign figurehead plans to say.

"1,264 days in which parliament should have delivered what you voted for, taken us out of the EU, and addressed all the reasons you voted so decisively for change.

General Election 2019 - In pictures

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"You voted to leave the EU because you wanted to stop sending the EU money we could spend at home, to end uncontrolled and unlimited immigration from the EU, to take back control from an unelected elite in Brussels - and to force politicians in Westminster to listen to you, not just London and the South East.

"Instead we have had 1,264 days of dither and delay, prevarication and procrastination, obfuscation and obstruction

"Parliament has bent every rule and broken every convention as it has delayed, diluted and denied Brexit.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson's party is still ahead, according to the latest polls.
AFP via Getty Images

"Remain MPs who said at the last election they would deliver Brexit shamefully did the exact opposite when they got to Westminster."

In London, shadow chancellor John McDonnell will use a speech to lay out the main priorities for the first hundred days of a Labour government.

The senior Labour figure is expected to announce that his first Budget would end austerity, while seeking to get investment flowing to communities that had been "neglected for decades" as part of his party's "green industrial revolution".

He will also confirm that the process for bringing key utilities into public ownership will start within the first four months of a Jeremy Corbyn premiership.

In his speech, Mr McDonnell will pledge to "put British industry back on the map" during a Labour tenure.

"In too many parts of the country, we have been wasting people's potential," he is expected to say.

"That's down to successive governments sitting back and leaving the fate of whole communities at the mercy of market forces.

"Good jobs and whole industries that were once the pride of our country have been lost and replaced with dreary, exploitative, insecure and low paid jobs. Or in some cases no jobs at all.

"No wonder people feel disillusioned in politicians.

"As our manifesto makes clear, turning these two things around will be our number one priority in government.

"Our Green Industrial Revolution will deliver the changes we need to avert climate catastrophe. And it will put British industry back on the map, bringing prosperity to every part of our country.

"It will give every community something to be proud of."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had announced on Friday that his party obtained a confidential government report, which he claimed proved that there would indeed be customs checks.

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