Boris Johnson urged voters to “come with us” to get Brexit done within weeks, as he formally launched his campaign on the steps of Downing Street after a disastrous few days for the Conservatives.
The prime minister gave an address to the nation outside No 10 after visiting the Queen following the dissolution of parliament.
He has attempted to reposition himself as leader of a “moderate, one nation Conservative” government. However, his campaign has already been overshadowed by a series of scandals in recent days. His ally, Jacob Rees-Mogg, suggested that victims of the Grenfell tower fire lacked common sense; and Alun Cairns, the Welsh secretary, resigned over his knowledge of a former aide’s role in allegedly sabotaging a rape trial.
Johnson said he wanted to chew his own tie in frustration because, he said, Brexit was “so nearly there”.
In claims that contrasted his approach with that of Labour, the prime minister said his own party had a deal that was “oven ready”, and repeated his attack line that Corbyn would cause “dither and delay” with two referendums next year, one on leaving the EU and the other on Scottish independence. However, Labour has said it would not have a independence referendum in the formative years of a parliament.
Johnson also said he would bring in an Australian-style points system on immigration, adding that Labour would allow “uncontrolled migration”, which would put pressure on the NHS. Corbyn has not yet set out Labour’s post-Brexit immigration policy, although the party’s conference passed a motion advocating a very liberal border regime.
A government that believed “Britain should stand tall in the world” was also a Johnson pledge; this contrasted with Corbyn “who sided with Putin” at the time of the chemical attack in Salisbury. At the time Corbyn’s spokesman questioned the evidence that Moscow was behind the 2018 attack in Salisbury, Wiltshire, which involved poisoning with the nerve agent novichok. Corbyn himself said there had to be “incontrovertible evidence” before Putin’s regime could be held responsible.
Johnson’s pledges included giving billions of pounds to schools – while Labour, he said, wanted to abolish Ofsted, which safeguarded children from bullying in the classroom. Labour has promised cash for schools and says it wants to replace Ofsted with another inspectorate.
The prime minister made some questionable claims about his first “108 or so days” in office, claiming to have made the biggest investment in hospitals in a generation with 40 new ones, and that he brought 20,000 more police on to the streets. Each is a Tory pledge yet to be enacted; the 40 hospitals are only due to get extra money for building work from 2025 to 2030.
Despite the exodus of moderate Tories ahead of the election, Johnson promised to bring in “one-nation” policies if he remained prime minister. “We have the confidence as one-nation Conservatives to make those investments, not despite our belief in a strong private sector but precisely because we champion this enterprise economy in the UK. And it’s only if you have great public services that you can have a successful market economy. So I say, come with us.”
