General election 2019: Boris Johnson targets Labour Leave seats in final push

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Boris Johnson will visit four Brexit-voting Labour-held seats across Humber and north-east England later, with three days to go before polling day.

In a speech in Sunderland – 61% of which voted to Leave – the PM is expected to tell voters: “The Labour party has let you down.”

He will attack Parliament, saying it has “delayed” and “denied” Brexit.

Mr Johnson will also travel to south-west England, where he will warn against voting for the pro-EU Lib Dems.

Voters go to the polls on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Labour will deliver a budget to “end austerity”, John McDonnell will promise in a speech setting out the party’s priorities for its first 100 days in government.

The shadow chancellor will also set out how he would get “money moving out of Whitehall and the City”.

The Liberal Democrats are, meanwhile, pledging to table legislation to stop Brexit immediately after the election by introducing two draft bills they say would pave the way for another EU referendum.

The first would enable the Electoral Commission to start the necessary consultation around a referendum question and lead campaign designation – and the second would provide a referendum on the government’s Brexit deal versus remaining in the EU.

Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson said: “Every vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to stop Boris and stop Brexit.”

Elsewhere, the Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw and former leader, Ruth Davidson, will lead the campaign against a second independence referendum in Scotland.

The Conservative Party says the prime minister is intending to “visit every region in England and Wales” in the final three days before polling day on Thursday.

Mr Johnson “will be visiting high streets, businesses, pubs and markets across England and Wales”, telling voters that “the only way they can get Brexit done and unleash Britain’s potential” is to vote Conservative, the party says.

‘Sunderland’s roar’

The Conservatives are hoping to win longstanding Labour constituencies that voted heavily to Leave the EU in the 2016 referendum – these are concentrated in the Midlands and parts of the north of England.

The Brexit Party has a similar goal – it has said Hartlepool is its number-one target.

In his speech, Mr Johnson is expected to say: “It’s now been 1,264 days since Sunderland’s roar was heard on the night of 23 June 2016.

“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.”

He will attack Parliament, saying that it has “bent every rule and broken every convention as it has delayed, diluted and denied Brexit”.

Mr Johnson will also say that “Remain MPs” who said they would deliver Brexit “shamefully did the exact opposite”.

“The Labour party has let you down most of all. Under Jeremy Corbyn, they promised to honour the result of the referendum – before voting against Brexit every chance they had,” he will say.

He will say that the choice is between a hung Parliament, with Labour leader Mr Corbyn and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon forming a coalition – leading to further referendums on Brexit and Scottish independence – and a Conservative majority govern that will “get Brexit done”.

Ms Sturgeon has said she is confident an agreement on a second independence vote could be done if Labour needed SNP support to form a government if there is a hung parliament.

But Mr Corbyn has ruled out supporting a Scottish independence referendum until after the next Holyrood election in 2021.

A further referendum on Brexit is part of the Labour Party’s policy. The party wants to renegotiate Mr Johnson’s deal and put it to a vote.

On Sunday, Mr Johnson insisted there will not be any checks for goods travelling from Northern Ireland to Great Britain under his Brexit deal.

He told Sky News that a leaked Treasury analysis document was “wrong” to suggest this would be the case.

His Brexit deal means there will be goods checks from GB to NI, but there has been confusion on whether there will be checks in the other direction.

Labour said the PM’s claims about his deal with the EU were “fraudulent”.

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