Jeremy Corbyn insisted today that a Labour election upset was ‘no problem at all’ despite signs that his party is on course to lose seats and suffer a humiliating defeat.
He spoke on the campaign trail less than 24 hours before the polls open for a vote that could decide the course of Brexit.
Boris Johnson is on course to win the general election with a majority of 28 that would allow him to complete Brexit, according to the YouGov polling analysis which correctly predicted a hung parliament in 2017.
But that majority is down from 68 seats a fortnight ago and the analysis also shows some of his top ministers, including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, could lose their seats.
Mr Corbyn could still conceivably find himself in No 10 at the the head of a rainbow coalition of Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens.
YouGov’s final MRP model predicts that the Conservatives will win 339 seats, with Jeremy Corbyn’s party on 231 and the Liberal Democrats on 15.
But the pollsters warned that the margin of error could put the Tory seat total as low as 311, which would mean another hung parliament.
Asked in an interview if he believes he can still win, the Labour leader said: ‘Of course we are going to do it – no problem at all.’
He added: ‘I never, ever comment on opinion polls. The only poll that matters is the one tomorrow.
‘We are campaigning all over the country with thousands of people on the streets campaigning, carrying a message of hope.’
Mr Corbyn (pictured campaigning in Middlesbrough today) could still conceivably find himself in No 10 at the the head of a rainbow coalition of Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens
Asked in an interview if he believes he can still win, the Labour leader said: ‘Of course we are going to do it – no problem at all’
It came as John McDonnell claimed the election will be ‘just like 2017’ when expectations Labour would be wiped out failed to materialise – as he said polls showed Jeremy Corbyn had the momentum going into tomorrow’s ballot.
The Shadow Chancellor explained while he does not believe all pre-election polling to be accurate, he thinks voters are clearly swinging towards Labour and could deprive the Conservatives a majority to deliver Brexit.
He told Sky News: ‘It’s like 2017, exactly then before the election itself polls were predicting we were going to be wiped out. I don’t believe all the polls but the trend is towards Labour.
‘We’re not in a situation where I think tomorrow will demonstrate that actually we can form a majority Labour Government. The polls have really narrowed.’
Presenter Kay Burley mocked the comments and suggested he was ‘riding into Downing Street on a unicorn’, but Mr McDonnell hit back: ‘Not at all, you look at the turnout tomorrow and we’ll see.’
In 2017, Theresa May was forecast to achieve a huge victory of 140 seats over Labour, but in the end lost her majority and was forced to form a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party.
It came as Boris Johnson made an impassioned plea for votes in a ‘tight race’ election today, telling MailOnline that losing a dozen seats could unlock a ‘catastrophic’ government led by Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon.
John McDonnell explained while he does not believe all pre-election polling to be accurate, he thinks voters are clearly swinging towards Labour and could deprive the Conservatives a majority to deliver Brexit
Prediction: YouGov’s final polling model of the 2019 general election campaign projects that the Conservatives will win a majority of 28
Mr Johnson (pictured today at the Red Olive in Derby) will be hoping to get more than his fair share of the vote pie when the results of tomorrow’s election are announced
Down to the wire: Boris Johnson stated his day by delivering milk in Leeds as part of his final election push
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was met by party activists as he visited Glasgow as he tries to move on from critical comments about him from Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth
YouGov projects a small Conservative majority as the most likely outcome of the election, with this map showing the seats most likely to change hands
The polling company expects Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP to take 41 seats in Scotland to the Tories nine, with Labour taking five
Small Conservative gains in the north of Wales are expected by YouGov, with Labour remaining the largest party with 26 constituencies
Mr Johnson told MailOnline this morning: ‘I think it’s a very tight race. We have got to fight for every vote. What we need is just nine more seats to get a working majority and then we can get Brexit done.
‘If we lose 12 seats I’m afraid we have Corbyn and Sturgeon in a majority. They would hold the balance of power and their agenda would be absolutely catastrophic for the country.’
The seat-by-seat model, which is based on thousands of interviews, puts the Tories on 43 per cent of the vote and Labour on 34 per cent.
Mr McDonnell also talked up Labour’s chances on BBC News, saying: ‘At the beginning of this campaign it was a bit like 2017.
‘It was almost as though the commentators and the media were saying Labour is going to be wiped out.
‘I’m not one of those believers in polls but you look at the trend, the trend has been towards us.
‘You saw last night we are in the margin of errors now about ensuring that Boris Johnson isn’t in government and I think we are within striking distance of a Labour government. It will all be to play for tomorrow.’
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was in Middlesborough today, where he made a speech criticising government spending cuts.
‘The cruelty of that system was a political choice made in 2010 by the Liberal Democrats and the Tories when they imposed austerity on the people of this country,’ he said.
‘The North East has suffered more than most areas because it all ready has a lower lever of investment of than other parts of the country and already has fewer people in work. So our manifesto is there and we are ready to implement it.’
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson played the role of milkman as his stunt-laden campaign tour entered its final hours today.
The Prime Minister started his day by helping load milk and orange juice bottles onto a delivery vehicle at Greenside Farm Business Park in Rawdon, West Yorkshire.
He then travelled to Guiseley where he delivered a crate of items to one house.
Two bottles of milk already outside the property were removed before the Conservative Party leader arrived.
He knocked on the door, which was opened by civil servant Debbie Monaghan, 40, who said: ‘Look who’s here.’
She called to her husband Mark, 40, and said: ‘So nice to meet you, Mr Prime Minister.
‘What are you doing up so early?’
The forecast suggests the race has tightened since the previous MRP results on November 27 showed the Tories on course for a majority of 68.
The Conservatives are predicted to gain 22 seats, including in Labour heartlands such as Ashfield, Bassetlaw and Tony Blair’s former seat of Sedgefield.
A majority of 28 would be the Conservatives’ best result since Margaret Thatcher’s third election victory in 1987.
However, there are signs that Labour is ‘patching the cracks’ in its so-called ‘red wall’ of seats across the North and the Midlands.
Conservative strategists fear that an ugly row over the NHS on Monday has damaged their campaign and candidates say the election is now ‘on a knife edge’.
The Tories’ shrinking lead means that Labour are now on course to retain Tory target seats such as Tom Watson’s former constituency of West Bromwich East.
Labour are also favoured to win Workington, home of the ‘Workington Man’ target voter highlighted by a think tank.
In addition, Labour are set to repeat their shock victories in Kensington and Canterbury, the poll suggests.
Two senior Tories – Dominic Raab and Iain Duncan Smith – face close races in their constituencies. Mr Raab leads the Lib Dems by only two points in his Esher and Walton constituency in Surrey, according to the model.
Pollsters say Labour’s recovery has been strongest in pro-Remain areas, where their vote share has increased by an average of six per cent since the last MRP release.
Still, a total of 231 seats would be Labour’s lowest since the 1987 election, when Neil Kinnock was party leader.
The south-west London constituency of Putney is at risk of being won by Labour despite years of being a Conservative stronghold
A graph showing the seats that could change hands between YouGov’s November polling and its most recent figures
Predicted vote share: The seat-by-seat model, which is based on thousands of interviews, puts the Tories on 43 per cent of the vote and Labour on 34 per cent
Final stretch: Boris Johnson, pictured helping on a packing production line in Warrington last night, has seen his lead over Labour shrink in the final weeks of the campaign
Chris Curtis, YouGov’s political research manager, said: ‘Our latest and final poll shows that a small Conservative majority is likely, with the Tories taking 22 more seats than in 2017 and Labour losing 31.
‘This would be the best and worst results respectively for each party since the 1980s.
‘But the margins are extremely tight and small swings in a small number of seats, perhaps from tactical voting and a continuation of Labour’s recent upward trend, means we can’t currently rule out a hung parliament.
‘As things currently stand there are 85 seats with a margin of error of five per cent or less.’
A polling error could also work in favour of the Conservatives, giving them a majority larger than 28.
Meanwhile Jo Swinson’s Lib Dems, who are promising to cancel Brexit, are predicted to win 15 seats.
That would be a gain of three since 2017, but a decline in the Commons where the Lib Dems held 21 seats at dissolution after a series of defections.
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which is not standing in seats won by the Tories two years ago, is expected to win three per cent of the vote but no seats.
According to the poll, the SNP are on course to win 41 out of 59 seats in Scotland, recouping some of the losses they made in 2017.
If the model is accurate, Plaid Cymru will win four seats in Wales, the same as last time.
The Greens are likely to retain their one seat in Brighton, while new Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle is expected to keep his Chorley seat where major parties are not challenging him.
Voters in Buckingham will have a choice of major parties for the first time since 2005 after previous speaker John Bercow stepped down.
Changes since 2017: The Conservatives are forecast to gain 22 seats at Thursday’s election, recovering the majority they lost two years ago, with Labour down 31 seats
Changes over time: This chart shows the state of the parties in 2017, at the dissolution of parliament, in the November MRP projection and in last night’s forecast
Trying his hand: Boris Johnson during a visit to The Hut Group in Warrington yesterday. A majority of 28 would be the Tories’ best election result since 1987
Jo Swinson ends election campaign less popular than Jeremy Corbyn
By Daniel Martin, Policy Editor for the Daily Mail
Jo Swinson has ended the election campaign less popular with the voters than Jeremy Corbyn.
A poll by Ipsos Mori found the Liberal Democrat leader has a net favourability rating of minus 31.
That compares to the Labour leader’s minus 30 rating.
Both trail Boris Johnson, whose net favourability rating stands at minus 14.
Unfavourable rating: Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson campaigning in Bath yesterday
The poll is devastating for the Lib Dems, and lends support to the theory that the more people see of their leader, the less they like her.
At the start of the campaign, Miss Swinson had a rating of minus 20. Now the rating is minus 31 (18 per cent favourable, 49 per cent unfavourable).
Mr Johnson’s leadership rating has also fallen from the beginning of the campaign, when it as minus 8.
Now it is minus 14 (33 per cent favourable, 47 per cent unfavourable).
Only Mr Corbyn has seen an improvement in his rating, enabling him to leapfrog Miss Swinson.
At the start of the campaign, the Labour leader was on minus 39.
Now he is on minus 30 (26 per cent favourable and 56 per cent unfavourable).
The previous model results two weeks ago predicted that the Conservatives would win 359 seats, compared to 211 for Labour.
MRP, which stands for multilevel regression and post-stratification, is used to predict results in individual constituencies.
YouGov’s model draws on the data collected from more than 100,000 panellists questioned on their voting intention over the course of the last seven days
The method came to widespread attention in 2017 when it correctly predicted that Theresa May would lose her majority.
Most polls had shown Mrs May on course to increase her majority after calling a snap election.
YouGov says that the model predicted the correct result in 93 per cent of GB constituencies two years ago.
The pollsters warn that the model is based on interviews conducted before polling day, pointing out that voters could change their minds before December 12.
In addition, the model cannot take into account tactical voting or the popularity of individual candidates.
The penultimate day of the campaign was dominated by a secret recording of Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth lambasting Mr Corbyn in private.
Shadow health secretary Mr Ashworth said Labour’s situation was ‘abysmal’ because voters ‘can’t stand Corbyn’, in a recording leaked to the website Guido Fawkes.
He also claimed the civil service would ‘move pretty quickly to safeguard security’ if the Labour leader became prime minister.
Mr Ashworth insisted he was ‘joking around’ and feeding his friend a ‘bit of b*****ks’, saying it was a ‘dirty trick’ to record the conversation.
However, Boris Johnson immediately seized on his remarks to renew his attacks on Labour.
The PM used an appearance at a JCB plant near Uttoxeter to brand Mr Corbyn a ‘Hamas-backing, IRA-supporting, anti-Semitism-condoning appeaser of the Kremlin’.
‘Don’t just listen to me, look at what his health spokesman Jon Ashworth has said. He is absolutely right,’ he said.
Mr Johnson also provided a bizarre visual metaphor for his election campaign by driving a JCB digger through a wall emblazoned with the word ‘gridlock’.
The Ashworth row was a welcome change of emphasis for the Tories after an ugly row over the NHS on Monday.
Challenge: Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Glasgow on Tuesday) has gained ground but is still set to lead Labour to its worst result since 1987, the latest polling model predicts
Looking ahead: Boris Johnson’s party is set to win a majority, but Labour appear to be shoring up their ‘red wall’ of seats in the Midlands and North of England, polling analysis suggests
The PM was widely criticised for refusing to look at a widely circulated picture of a young boy lying on a pile of coats at Leeds General Infirmary.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock was dispatched to the hospital in an attempt to defuse the growing media firestorm.
However, his visit prompted further acrimony when false rumours swirled that Mr Hancock’s aide had been punched by a Labour activist.
Labour accused the Tories of ‘bare-faced lying’ after footage showed that the encounter was no more than an accidental brush of the arm.
Polls open at 7am on Thursday. An exit poll prediction will be published once polling stations close at 10pm.
Votes will then be counted through the night and the national picture should become clear in the early hours of Friday.
What is the MRP polling analysis and how does it work?
What is the latest poll?
For the last seven days YouGov has interviewed approximately 100,000 panellists about their voting intentions in the 2019 General Election.
While this is a much larger sample than YouGov’s usual polls, the samples in each of the 632 Parliamentary constituencies are too small, working out on average at only 150 voters per constituency, to produce reliable estimates if they analysed the data as constituency polls.
In order to come up with estimates for each constituency they have used a technique called Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification – or MRP for short.
What is MRP?
YouGov said the idea behind MRP is that it uses the poll data from the preceding seven days to estimate a model which includes interview date, constituency, voter demographics, past voting behaviour and other respondent profile variables to their current voting intentions.
This model is then used to estimate the probability that a voter with specified characteristics will vote Conservative, Labour or another party.
Using data from the UK Office for National Statistics, the British Election Study, and past election results, YouGov has estimated the number of each type of voter in each constituency.
Combining the model probabilities and estimated census counts allows YouGov to produce estimates of the number of voters in each constituency intending to vote for a party.
Humiliated: YouGov’s MRP polling analysis correctly predicted that Theresa May (pictured) would fail to win a majority in the snap election she called in 2017
How does MRP differ from usual polling?
Chris Curtis, political research manager at YouGov, said traditional polling can tell us what happens at a national level, but it does not answer the question of what might be happening in each of the constituencies across the country.
He said MRP is a polling technique aimed at solving that problem, a way of using large samples sizes to project figures on to smaller geographical areas.
Mr Curtis said it works by using an extremely large sample to model people’s vote preferences based upon their demographics, their age, gender, education, past vote and similar factors, and the local political circumstances.
Has the method been used before?
Yes. YouGov used the same method in the 2017 General Election, when the model accurately predicted the results in 93% of constituencies, and pointed towards a hung Parliament when many other election predictions were pointing towards a Conservative majority.
Does that mean it is completely reliable and should be seen as an accurate prediction of what will happen on December 12?
No. It is merely a projection forecasting what may happen based on current analysis. There are still two weeks to go, and a lot can change between now and then.
And just because the model was accurate in 2017 does not necessarily guarantee it will be accurate this time round.
Now 15 ex Labour MPs urge voters to reject Jeremy Corbyn: Risk of him becoming PM is ‘too great’ say former colleagues in devastating open letter hours after shadow minister branded him a security risk
By Larisa Brown, Political Correspondent for the Daily Mail
Fifteen former Labour MPs have launched an unprecedented advertising campaign on the eve of the election urging voters not to back Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow.
In a devastating open letter, they warn the Labour leader will deliver the opposite of a ‘safer, fairer society’, citing his record on anti-Semitism, extremism and national security.
They declare the party is no longer the one they supported all their lives and warn the risk of Mr Corbyn getting into No 10 is ‘too great’.
In the advert they proclaim: ‘We were all lifelong Labour voters and all former Labour MPs.
‘We are voting for different parties at this election, but we have all come to the difficult decision not to vote Labour.’
The poster – organised by campaign group Mainstream – will run as full-page adverts across a number of local and regional newspapers in the North today. It will target dozens of marginal constituencies where Labour could lose seats.
Under fire: Fifteen former Labour MPs have launched an unprecedented advertising campaign urging voters not to back Jeremy Corbyn (pictured at a phone bank in Glasgow yesterday)
In the extraordinary intervention, the advert says: ‘Thinking of voting Labour? Think again.
‘Everyone wants a safer, fairer society. But in this election the Labour Party is set to deliver the opposite.’
A number of the signatories have previously spoken out against Mr Corbyn, including Ian Austin and John Woodcock who urged voters to back Boris Johnson. But they are also joined by others who have previously not publicly stood against Mr Corbyn.
The advert then goes on to explain why the former Labour MPs will not be backing Mr Corbyn.
It states: ‘Despite what Jeremy Corbyn says about anti-Semitism, we need to accept that most Jewish people have well-founded fears about what Labour has become. British Jews deserve our support.’
On Mr Corbyn’s record on national security, it states: ‘From wanting to ‘end Nato’ to calling members of Hamas and Hezbollah ‘friends’, Jeremy Corbyn has too often sided with those hostile to Britain, from the IRA to Russia.’
The poster concludes: ‘We know it’s a hard decision for Labour supporters to make. It was for us, too.
‘But millions of people who have voted Labour all their lives now think the risk of Jeremy Corbyn getting into Number 10 is too great.
‘The party has changed. Labour is no longer the party we have supported all our lives.’
In excoriating comments, Mr Austin, chairman of Mainstream, said it would be a ‘disaster’ for the UK if Mr Corbyn got the keys to Downing Street. He added: ‘The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn has changed beyond recognition. It is no longer the party myself and millions of other Labour voters supported all our lives. I’m urging all decent Labour voters not to back Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday.’
Tory candidates said the poster illustrated how unfit he was to become PM. Alan Mak, Tory candidate for Havant constituency in Hampshire, said: ‘Even former Labour MPs know we can’t trust Jeremy Corbyn with our country’s future. He would be an extreme, divisive prime minister.’
Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth is caught on tape questioning whether Jeremy Corbyn can be trusted with national security
By Jason Groves and John Stevens for the Daily Mail
Labour was reeling last night after a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn questioned whether he could be trusted with national security.
Jonathan Ashworth said Downing Street officials would have to ‘move to safeguard security’ if his leader won tomorrow’s election.
Mr Ashworth also admitted that party moderates would be powerless to constrain Mr Corbyn in No 10 because he had been strengthened by seeing off a coup in 2016.
The health spokesman’s gaffe threatened to torpedo Labour’s final push for power in tomorrow’s election.
Boris Johnson said that Mr Ashworth was simply ‘saying what hundreds of Labour candidates and millions of voters are thinking – Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be PM’.
Caught out: Jonathan Ashworth (pictured) said Downing Street officials would have to ‘move to safeguard security’ if his leader won tomorrow’s election
The damaging comments came in a leaked 11-minute conversation with a Tory friend, in which he conceded that many traditional Labour supporters were angry that the party had ‘blocked Brexit’.
He said working-class voters ‘can’t stand Corbyn’ and suggested the party was ‘banging on about the NHS’ to avoid losing more support.
Mr Ashworth later claimed he had been ‘joshing’ and did not believe the things he had said. But he admitted the leaked recording made him look ‘a real plonker’.
Mr Corbyn said Mr Ashworth’s comments were an example of his ‘rather odd sense of humour’. He added: ‘He said to me it was all about reverse psychology banter as in football supporters and the other person was saying the opposite about their party and it all got a bit out of hand.’
Mr Corbyn refused to say whether the shadow minister would keep his job if Labour won power.
The intervention threatened to rob Labour of political momentum as it tried to capitalise on the case of a poorly four-year-old boy left on the floor of an NHS hospital because of a lack of beds.
Mr Ashworth said his comments were made in a private conversation with a longstanding friend: Greig Baker, a former chairman of Canterbury Conservatives.
He added: ‘It’s a shame because I thought he was a friend – he’s clearly not a friend.’
The conversation, which appeared to have been recorded around ten days ago, was leaked to the Guido Fawkes website. Mr Ashworth, a former aide to Gordon Brown, is one of the few remaining moderates in the shadow cabinet. His comments are all the more damaging because they echo key Tory attacks on Mr Corbyn.
Asked whether Mr Corbyn would be as dangerous as the Conservatives have suggested, Mr Ashworth said: ‘On the security stuff, I have worked in No 10. I think the machine will pretty quickly move to safeguard security things.’
Mr Ashworth admitted Labour’s focus on the NHS was an attempt to shore up its crumbling vote, saying: ‘I have been going round these national places. It is dire for Labour. It is dire.’
On a campaign visit to the JCB headquarters near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, the Prime Minister seized on the comments, denouncing Mr Corbyn as a ‘Hamas-backing, IRA-supporting, anti-Semitism-condoning appeaser of the Kremlin’.
He added: ‘If you doubt me, look at what his health spokesman said today, Jon Ashworth. He revealed that he thought his own leader is a security risk.’
Mr Ashworth was later sent out to deny he believed what he was recorded saying.
Asked if he still believed that Mr Corbyn was a threat to national security, he replied: ‘Of course I don’t.’ He told the BBC that he now believed Labour would win the election.
Appearing on LBC radio for a listener call-in, Mr Ashworth said he was feeding his friend a ‘bit of b*****ks’.
Mr Baker, who has been on holiday with Mr Ashworth, faced abuse from Labour supporters on social media yesterday. But he defended his conduct, tweeting: ‘If someone tells you about a threat to national security – that they say could only be avoided by asking civil servants to act unconstitutionally – there’s a duty to tell people about it.’
Mr Corbyn claimed that the recording had been leaked in order to ‘deflect away from the Tories’ mess on the NHS’.
Bulldozing Boris Johnson hits out at ‘Hamas-backing, IRA-supporting, Kremlin appeaser’ Jeremy Corbyn and says ‘we face a lost decade’ if Labour triumphs before laying out his six-point pledge card for the future
By James Tapsfield, Political Editor and Jack Maidment, Deputy Political Editor and David Wilcock, Whitehall Correspondent for MailOnline
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.
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
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.’
Mr Johnson got behind the wheel of a Brexit-themed JCB as he drove through a wall emblazoned with the word ‘gridlock’
Boris Johnson today tried to get the Tory election campaign back on track as he visited a JCB factory in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire
He continued: ‘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.’
Tories are planning to AXE the £14billion foreign aid department if Boris Johnson wins election
By Jason Groves, Political Editor for the Daily Mail
Britain’s foreign aid department could be axed if Boris Johnson wins the general election.
Officials have been asked to consider what to do with the Department for International Development (Dfid) in a shake-up of Whitehall after polling day.
The department, which controls most of Britain’s £14billion aid budget, has faced frequent criticism for waste and muddle since it was set up by Labour in 1997.
The Tory manifesto commits the Conservatives to keeping the controversial target of spending 0.7 per cent of Britain’s income on aid while also doing more ‘to help countries receiving aid become self-sufficient’.
But Mr Johnson has long argued that the cash might be better targeted if managed by the Foreign Office. In February he said: ‘We could make sure that 0.7 per cent is spent more in line with Britain’s political commercial and diplomatic interests.’
Britain’s foreign aid department could be axed if Boris Johnson wins the general election. Pictured: Mr Johnson in Manchester yesterday
Tory sources yesterday suggested that the idea of folding into the foreign office into the Foreign Office was ‘speculation’.
But a Government official told the Financial Times: ‘There is thinking going on about it. We want things to work better overseas. This shake-up could be positive.’
Some Dfid officials believe the move could be a pretext for cutting the aid budget. The Tories have previously suggested expanding the definition of aid to include spending on diplomatic and military missions
One Dfid source said staff would resign if there was any attempt to scrap the department or change its priorities. The move would also require a change in the law, which requires the government to adhere to aid rules set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Officials point out that the Foreign Office already spends some aid cash and has faced fierce criticism over projects such as grants to the Chinese film industry.
One Dfid source said: ‘The Foreign Office spends 10 per cent of the money and causes 90 per cent of the controversy.’
Mr Johnson is expected to conduct only a minor reshuffle if he wins this week. However, he is drawing up plans for a major shake-up after Britain leaves the EU.
Officials point out that the Foreign Office (pictured) already spends some aid cash and has faced fierce criticism over projects such as grants to the Chinese film industry