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Nigel Farage is facing increasing pressure to pull candidates from marginal seats as the deadline day for nominations arrives.
Mr Farage has been warned that votes for his party would hand the keys of Number 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, with Boris Johnson insisting a Conservative government is the “only way” to get Brexit done.
Meanwhile, the estranged wife of disgraced former MP Andrew Griffiths has announced she will be running in his place for the Conservative Party in next month’s election.
It comes as Labour vows to close the pay gap between men and women within a decade – 50 years earlier than the Government is reportedly currently on course for.
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Mr Farage added that he believes the General Election will be decided by tactical voting. Pushed on why he is not standing in the election, Mr Farage said:
I am spending my time touring the country. If I was hunkered down in one seat, I could not do that.
I’m going to go out around the country saying to Labour voters, ‘you are being let down badly, betrayed by the Labour Party who now want you to vote again’.
And the same for Conservative voters, in seats that the Conservatives have never won in 100 years, your best chance of getting Brexit is to get us in there and hold Boris Johnson to account.
And ultimately this election will be decided by tactical voting decisions all across the country.
On whether Mr Farage was prepared to stand Brexit Party candidates down in more seats, he said:
This all started way back in September when I sent to Number 10 some polling that said that in their 40 key seats, if I endorsed their Conservative candidate, one-third of Labour voters in those seats would vote Conservative on a one-off basis to get a genuine Brexit done.
And ever since that time, what I’ve realised is that the Conservatives want a Conservative majority in Parliament, not a Brexit majority in Parliament.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mr Farage said: “The job of the Brexit Party is to hold him (Boris Johnson) to account, because too many times over the last three years the Conservatives have made promises and not delivered.”
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has said the Conservative Party would rather risk losing the election than forming a Leave alliance with his party.
Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Luciana Berger has said she wishes that the Labour Party had been involved in the Unite to Remain alliance discussions.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme, Ms Berger was questioned as to why the Liberal Democrats are continuing to field candidates against pro-remain Labour and Independent candidates.
Asked why her party is standing against former Conservative minister David Gauke, who yesterday announced he will run as an Independent in South West Hertfordshire, Ms Berger said: “I know and like David very, very much but as I understand it, David would like a soft Brexit. People want a choice at this election.”
“If we trust the Conservative Party, we would never have had a referendum and would still have this year, Theresa May as Prime Minister,” Mr Farage added.
He denied the Brexit Party was a “pressure group” but said: “Even if we were a pressure group we’ve been a very successful one.”
“The Conservative Party do not want the Brexit Party winning seats in the election,” he claimed.
Mr Farage said: “This all started way back in September when I sent Number 10 some polling. That said in their 40 key seats, if I endorsed the Conservative candidate, one third of Labour voters would vote Conservative on a one off to deliver Brexit.”
Nigel Farage is speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme and has ruled out pulling Brexit Party candidates.
“We are going to fight 300 seats, that is exactly what we’re going to do,” he said.
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Boris Johnson has said Jeremy Corbyn was “naive to the point of being dangerous” after he suggested the leader of Islamic State should have been arrested and put on trial.
Mr Johnson defended the US special forces raid which led to the death last month of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“Al-Baghdadi was an absolute diabolical foe of this country, of our liberal values, everything we believe in and support,” he said.
“I think his (Mr Corbyn’s) approach is naive and it is naive to the point of being dangerous.”
Alastair Campbell, former spin doctor to Labour prime minister Tony Blair, has urged the public to vote tactically in the General Election.
Speaking to the ITV News Calling Peston podcast, Mr Campbell said: “I will go to [South West Hertfordshire] and campaign for David Gauke, I would go and help Phillip Lee, I think we’ve all got to do what we can do … It really depresses me, why are the Greens standing against Anna Soubry?”
Mr Campbell is the editor-at-large at the anti-Brexit New European newspaper and has been a prominent supporter of the People’s Vote campaign for a second EU referendum.
Mr Corbyn also said Boris Johnson’s “onanism” comment was “ridiculous and actually quite offensive”, and denied talk of another EU referendum was self-obsessive.
In an interview in Glasgow, Mr Corbyn said: “Ridiculous and actually quite offensive to people. If you want to say something say it in clear plain language that everyone can understand.
“The clear plain language I would use is I want to live in a country of social justice, I want to live in a country that makes its decision for the future on December 12.”
He denied people talking about another referendum were self-obsessed.
Mr Corbyn said: “No, of course they’re not self-obsessing. What they are doing is trying to put across a point of view. We’ve always tried to bring people together however they voted in the EU referendum in 2016.”
Jeremy Corbyn has ruled out holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the first term of a Labour government, even if the SNP gets a majority in Scotland.
In an interview as he kicked off his two-day tour of Scotland in Glasgow, Mr Corbyn said: “No referendum in the first term for a Labour government because I think we need to concentrate completely in investment across Scotland.”
But pressed if it would be an undemocratic move if the SNP won a majority of seats in Scotland in the General Election, he said: “If the SNP win the majority of seats that’s the election of those MPs. I’m very clear that a Labour government’s priority is investment in Scotland.”
Aides later backtracked and made it clear that Labour’s position could change if the SNP won a majority in Holyrood in 2021.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is visiting a boxing gym in London today.
Jo Swinson told the PA news agency she had not lost control of Lib Dem candidates after the party’s standard bearer in Canterbury stood down saying he did not want to split the Remain vote.
The Lib Dem leader insisted the party would field a new candidate in the Kent constituency.
Ms Swinson also said the party would continue to stand against former Tory Cabinet minister David Gauke after he strongly criticised Boris Johnson.
Mr Ashworth said the NHS would be “literally rebuilt under a Labour government” as he pledged to commit an additional £15 billion capital investment to rebuild “crumbling hospitals”.
“Overall NHS capital expenditure – budgets that have been cut under the Tories and raided – will increase to meet the OECD average and it will be done through public investment.
“That will mean an extra £15 billion capital investment to rebuild crumbling hospitals and invest in the cutting-edge medical technology of the future.
“Years of Tory cuts to capital budgets have left our NHS with a £6.5 billion repair bill – we will clear the maintenance backlog. The NHS will be literally rebuilt under a Labour government.”
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the NHS is “crying out for a financial rescue plan and real change”.
He claimed that since Matt Hancock was appointed Health Secretary, the number of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment has “risen from 504,000 to 662,000” which he said was a “record of quite shameful failure”.
“Cancer waiting times are the worst on record. Last year over 34,000 people with cancer waited beyond two months for treatment. On all eight measures collected for 2019/20 performance is lower than the previous year. Meanwhile waits for diagnostic tests are at their highest for 11 years.
“After a near enough decade of underfunding and cuts, after axing of over 15,000 beds, after brutal slashing of social care budgets and a failure to address chronic workforce shortages of 100,000, our NHS is crying out for a financial rescue plan and real change.”
Jeremy Corbyn kicked off a two-day tour of Scotland with a warning that the SNP cannot form a government in the UK.
Speaking in Glasgow’s Heart of Scotstoun community centre, the Labour leader said: “This is a General Election where there is a simple choice about which government you want in Westminster.
“It’s either going to be a Conservative government or a Labour government. Nobody else can form a government.”
Mr McDonnell added: “For eight years the NHS budget increases have averaged just 1.4%, that says something about the value they place on caring for one another.
“And when you sift through the spin of their most recent promises – which use cash terms figures – they are proposing spending just 3.3% extra a year, compared to the 4.3% we’re promising.
“On capital – the NHS capital budget is lower today in real terms than shockingly in 2010/11. And in recent weeks we have had the absolute scandal of Tory promises for 40 new hospitals turning into just six hospital recalibrations.
“We can’t believe a word they say.”
