Brexit is at risk unless Tories turn out to vote in the ‘most important election in a lifetime’, Boris Johnson has warned.
The Prime Minister voiced fears that polls predicting victory are wrong as he insisted Thursday’s ballot is too close to call.
He said the country faces a ‘lost decade’ if he does not win, warning that Britain would be led by a ‘Hamas-backing, IRA-supporting, anti-Semitism-condoning appeaser of the Kremlin’ in Jeremy Corbyn.
Mr Johnson will begin his final day on the campaign trail by joining a milk round in Yorkshire this morning and end it with an eve-of-poll rally in London. He will also make stops in the Midlands and Wales.
On a visit to JCB’s factory in Staffordshire yesterday, he hammered home his message that the Tories need a Commons majority so they can ‘send in the bulldozers’ and ‘smash through the Brexit gridlock’.
To emphasise this, he drove a digger with a ‘Get Brexit Done’ sign in its bucket through a wall marked ‘Gridlock’.
Mr Johnson urged his party not be complacent as he told supporters to remember the 2017 election, when polls predicted victory but Theresa May lost her majority.
Asked by the Daily Mail if he was ‘home and dry’ for an election win, the Prime Minister replied: ‘Absolutely not. This is a very close-fought election and we need every vote.
‘The only mathematical alternative to a working majority Conservative government is a real risk of another hung parliament. That’s another five years of confusion, chaos, dither, delay and division. We cannot go down that route. I’m sorry to say this but you remember what happened in 2017 – polls can be wrong. We need to be fighting for every vote.
‘This is a momentous occasion for our country. I’ve never known an election like it, I’ve never known a moment when the choice before us was so clear and so stark. I urge you all to think very, very hard. We have 48 hours to end the deadlock, the gridlock, the roadblock.’
Mr Johnson will today unveil a six-point pledge card that includes delivering Brexit by the end of January, 50,000 more nurses, 20,000 more police officers, an Australian-style points-based immigration system, net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and not raising income tax, VAT or National Insurance.
He will say: ‘While my six pledges to the people start with getting Brexit done, they don’t end there. We want to invest in the NHS, crack down on crime, tackle climate change and keep taxes low – our priorities are your priorities. But Brexit is the key.’
Urging voters to realise ‘this election is the most important in a lifetime,’ he will say: ‘The result will define the next decade – will we go forward, grow as a country, unleash our potential? Or will we remain stuck, stood still, unable to make any progress? Tomorrow you have the opportunity to tell politicians that you want Brexit done.’
Mr Johnson earlier tore into the Labour leader on a visit to a JCB factory where he ran amok in a Brexit-themed digger, driving it through a wall with the word ‘gridlocked’ emblazoned on it.
Mr Johnson also seized on a secret recording in which Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth suggested Mr Corbyn was a security risk.
A secret recording of the shadow health secretary revealed he told a Conservative friend that Mr Corbyn was unelectable and was proving to be a massive problem on the doorstep with many voters in Labour’s heartlands.
Mr Ashworth has claimed the comments were ‘banter’ but Mr Johnson said this afternoon they demonstrated exactly why Mr Corbyn must not be put in Number 10.
The PM added: ‘But if you doubt me, listen to what his health spokesman said today, Jon Ashworth. He revealed that he thinks his own leader is a security risk and I think it couldn’t be clearer than that.’
The Prime Minister has repeatedly vowed during the election campaign to replace the old parliament with one that can finally agree a Brexit deal and take the UK out of the European Union.
Signalling his intention to bulldoze his political opponents at the ballot box on Thursday, he used the powerful visual metaphor of a piece of heavy machinery bearing his ‘Get Brexit Done’ mantra – and with a Union flag paint job – crashing through a Styrofoam wall to hammer home his key message to voters.
There are now just two days left until the election and the Prime Minister is trying to re-energise the Tory campaign after an opinion poll showed his hopes of winning a majority are hanging in the balance with the Conservative lead over Labour down to seven points.
The Savanta ComRes survey, conducted between December 6-8, puts the Tories on 43 per cent and Labour on 36 per cent.
If such numbers were replicated on polling day it could lead to a hung parliament, with the Electoral Calculus prediction website suggesting it would leave the Conservatives a handful of seats short of a majority.
Tory strategists are concerned Labour may not need to gain a single seat to oust Mr Johnson, with the party’s private polling showing that losing just 12 constituencies to the SNP and Lib Dems could put Mr Corbyn in Number 10.
Boris Johnson today tried to get the Tory election campaign back on track as he visited a JCB factory in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire
Mr Johnson got behind the wheel of a Brexit-themed JCB as he drove through a wall emblazoned with the word ‘gridlock’
Mr Johnson appeared to be in good spirits during the campaign stop despite opinion polls suggesting that the race for Number 10 is getting tighter
Mr Johnson used a speech after his time in the JCB to seize on comments made by shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth who was recorded saying Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable and would pose a security risk as PM
A new SavantaComRes poll gives the Tories a seven point lead over Labour. It puts the Tories on 43 per cent and Labour on 36 per cent. If such a result is replicated at the election on Thursday it could result in a hung Parliament
A secret recording of Mr Ashworth sparked a political firestorm after it was published by the Guido Fawkes website this morning.
In the phone conversation, the Labour frontbencher said his leader’s tortured neutrality on Brexit was proving divisive in working class, Leave-supporting areas.
The Labour candidate for Leicester South is heard saying the civil service machine would ‘pretty quickly move to safeguard security’ if Mr Corbyn entered Number 10.
He said: ‘Outside of the city seats, if you are in small-town Midlands and North, it’s abysmal out there.
‘They don’t like Johnson but they can’t stand Corbyn and they think Labour’s blocked Brexit.
‘I don’t think they are long-term gains for the Tory Party but I can see them going Tory this election and if Labour ever got its act together they presumably would fall back.’
Confronted with his remarks on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire Show today, Mr Ashworth claimed it was ‘banter’ with a friend.
He said: ‘We are having banter with each other. We are joking around. No I don’t mean it, because I’m joking around with my mate because he is a Tory and he is saying things. If you leak it to Guido Fawkes of course it makes me look like a right plonker.
‘But it is not what I mean when I’m winding up a friend, trying to sort of … pull his leg a bit.’
Mr Ashworth claimed the recording was leaked by Tory activist Greig Baker, former chairman of Canterbury Conservative Association.
The shadow health secretary said: ‘It’s a shame because I thought he was a friend – he’s clearly not a friend.’
Later, on the BBC’s Politics Live programme, he suggested he was trying to do the ‘Alex Ferguson thing, psyche him out’ – a reference to the former Manchester United football manager.
Mr Ashworth apologised to the Labour Party and admitted he looked like an ‘idiot’ after the recording was released.
Mr Corbyn said the leaked conversation was an attempt to ‘deflect away from the Tories’ mess on the NHS’ and that Mr Ashworth’s comments were just an example of his ‘rather odd sense of humour’.
Pressed on suggestions in the recording that he was a security risk, Mr Corbyn said: ‘Jon and I have known each other for a very long time and he was actually making some jokes, a rather odd sense of humour surrounding it, but that is him.
‘If you know Jon Ashworth like I do, he makes jokes the whole time.’
Mr Johnson today tried to get his campaign back on track after a disastrous day for the Tories yesterday which saw the PM embroiled in a damaging row over the treatment of a sick four-year-old boy who was photographed lying on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary.
The PM was confronted with the widely-publicised picture of Jack Williment-Barr by ITV reporter Joe Pike and initially refused to look at it as he put the interviewer’s phone in his pocket before backing down.
The hospital row then worsened as the Tories wrongly accused a Labour activist of punching Matt Hancock’s adviser as the Health Secretary left the hospital in question after trying to defuse the row. A video of the altercation showed the aide had walked into the protestor’s hand.
Mr Johnson then published a new Tory party political broadcast on his Twitter page at 9.36pm last night in a move which appeared to be designed to force the election campaign focus away from the NHS and back onto the PM’s preferred battleground of Brexit.
In the video Mr Johnson recreates a famous scene from the film Love Actually as he knocks on a member of the public’s door and uses a slideshow of cards with handwritten messages on to hammer home his core election mantra of ‘Get Brexit Done’.
The timing of the publication of the ‘Brexit, actually’ video raised eyebrows because it came at the end of a torrid day for the Tories and with the Conservative Party due to broadcast the election advert at 6.55pm on the BBC this evening.
Tory sources denied the advert had been rushed out as they said it was first broadcast by BBC Wales yesterday evening before it was published by Mr Johnson.
Conservative strategists are worried that Mr Johnson’s position as the clear frontrunner in the race for Number 10 could make his supporters complacent.
The Tories fear that could result in Conservative voters failing to turn out to vote on Thursday.
As a result, the party is cranking up its ‘fight for every vote’ and is warning the election is tighter than people think.
The Conservatives are also blitzing voters with their ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogans in the final campaign sprint before polling day.
Urging viewers to ‘vote Conservative actually’ in the Tory advert published last night, Mr Johnson unveils placards that read: ‘Your vote has never been more important. The other guy could win.
‘So you have a choice to make. Between a working majority.
‘Or another gridlocked hung parliament.’
Labour has been gradually eating into Mr Johnson’s poll lead in recent days but it looks like it could be too little too late for Mr Corbyn in terms of his chances of victory.
However, the Labour leader could yet deprive Mr Johnson of securing the majority he craves.
Campaign gurus in Conservative HQ have said Mr Corbyn’s prospects of becoming prime minister have been ‘seriously underestimated’.
A leaked memo between Tory pollster Michael Brooks and chief strategist Isaac Levido seen by the Daily Telegraph said ‘as little as a 1 to 2 per cent movement in the current vote in a handful of seats’ could result in a hung parliament.
Mr Brooks goes on to caution that a complacent belief that a Conservative victory is in the bag poses a ‘major risk’ to the party maintaining its grip on government.
The woman is relaxing on the sofa with her partner when the doorbell goes in the unconventional election broadcast
A Conservative election broadcast which aired in Wales tonight starred the Prime Minister as one of the movie’s hopeless romantics who uses a slideshow of placards to tell a woman he loves her
The skit opens with Boris telling the woman to pretend it’s carol singers at the door
Key point: The PM insists Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour could still gain power if tactical voting isn’t taken sufficiently seriously
Pro-EU campaigners have wargamed that it would only take 40,000 voters scattered across roughly 30 marginal seats to vote tactically to return a hung parliament, paving the way for Mr Corbyn to potentially take power.
Polling suggests that more voters than ever before are prepared to vote tactically in this election, which the Conservatives worry could claim some large party scalps such as ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith and one-time Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, whose chief rivals have been bolstered by Remain candidates standing aside.
In a bid to counter ‘TnT’ – tactical voting and turnout complacency concerns – Mr Johnson’s Love Actually-themed broadcast underscored the possibility of a Labour election upset.
Clutching a pile of billboards and a stereo playing carols, he emulated the famous scene between Andrew Lincoln and Keira Knightly.
One by one he turned over the cards – which each only had a few words on – addressed to a woman he was trying to woo from across the threshold.
They read: ‘With any luck, by next year. We’ll have Brexit done. If Parliament doesn’t block it again. And we can move on.
‘But for now let me say. Your vote has never been more important. The other guy could win.
‘So you have a choice to make. Between a working majority. Or another gridlocked hung parliament. Arguing about Brexit. Until I look like this.’
In the 2003 rom-com Andrew Lincoln tells Keira Knightly he loves her over the threshold of her home while her boyfriend is inside
Jeremy Corbyn also shared his own online video in which he is filmed reading out ‘mean tweets’ which people have posted insulting him
Mr Corbyn, pictured during an appearance on BBC Breakfast this morning, rejected accusations of Labour using the NHS as a ‘political football’
He then showed a picture of a scruffy blonde sheepdog which prompted a snort of laughter from the redhead woman.
Mr Johnson continued: ‘It’s closer than you think. We only need nine more seats to get an election. And on 12th December. Your vote will make all the difference. Merry Christmas.’
Love Actually is widely regarded as one of the nation’s favourite Christmas films and is often re-watched by families on December 25.
But the star of the 2003 rom-com, Hugh Grant, who plays the prime minister, is an active Remain activist and has been leafleting with pro-EU Lib Dem and Labour candidates.
Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn published his own new social media video last night as he was filmed reading out ‘mean tweets’ which had been directed at him on Twitter.
Sitting in front of a roaring fire, Mr Corbyn read out a series of rude messages including one which said: ‘I’ll bet Jeremy Corbyn will be glad when this election is over so he can go back to wearing his commie hat.’
The latest Conservative broadcast asking people to ‘vote Conservative actually’ comes after Mr Johnson deployed another film reference to steer people away from Labour.
He said voters should swing behind the Tories to avoid waking up on Friday the 13th to see the ‘Nightmare on Downing Street’ of Mr Corbyn in charge.
Although Labour is closing the poll gap, Mr Johnson is still the election frontrunner but the Conservatives hope that does not lure their supporters into a false sense of security that he is certain to win.
Boris Johnson poses holding a cod during a general election campaign visit to Grimsby Fish Market as he cranks up his campaigning
Tory private polling reveals a swing of just 12 constituencies to the SNP and Lib Dems could deprive them of a majority and allow Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Bristol on Monday) to springboard himself into Number 10 with the support of minor parties
The PM (pictured during a visit to Gardiner Bros in Hardwicke) will say on Tuesday will warn there is a ‘clear and present’ danger of another hung parliament if voters do not back the Conservatives
And in the first December ballot since 1923, they are pinning their hopes on their elderly voters flocking to polling stations in what may be grim weather.
The PM doubled down his anti-complacency messaging today during his campaign trip to Staffordshire.
Reiterating the memo’s concerns that opposition parties only need 12 seats to put Mr Corbyn in power, he warned there is a ‘clear and present’ danger of another hung parliament if voters do not back the Conservatives.
He said: ‘The danger of another hung parliament is clear and present. There are sophisticated and well-financed attempts underway to prevent a Conservative majority through tactical voting.
‘Jeremy Corbyn and his Lib Dem, nationalist and Green allies need only 12 more seats than last time to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister and continue the chaos of a hung parliament.
‘A vote for any of these parties is a vote for further indecision and two more referendums, on Brexit and Scottish independence. We’ll be stuck in this limbo, this first circle of hell, for the foreseeable future.
‘On the other hand, the Conservatives need only nine more seats for a majority. We could finally get Brexit done, end the uncertainty and move on.’
Meanwhile, here’s someone who is a guaranteed backer of Boris…
Dilyn the dog plumped for some fetching festive antlers yesterday – possibly having been on the horns of a dilemma about what to wear for Christmas.
The Prime Minister’s pooch appeared in a Snapchat post from Carrie Symonds, Boris Johnson’s partner, who clearly had a hand in his choice of headwear, writing: ‘I’m sorry Dilyn. I am a bad mother.’
Dilyn the dog gets into the festive spirit while his master is in the midst of election frenzy