The European Council president Donald Tusk has urged opponents of Brexit not to “give up” suggested the general election gave voters the chance to prevent Britain’s exit from the EU.
It comes as a weekly tracker showed Labour had cut the Conservative poll lead, as Jeremy Corbyn’s party unveils plans to end the gender pay gap by 2030. Boris Johnson’s Tories, meanwhile, are promising to cut “overall immigration”.
Ahead of today’s 4pm deadline for candidates’ nominations, second Brexit referendum campaigners are urging Labour and Lib Dems to step aside in 90 key seats to avoid a split between among pro-EU voters.
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Farage claims Tories calling up Brexit Party candidates – and telling them to ‘stand down’
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has been speaking in Hull. He claims Labour have become the party of “Hoxton not Hull” and confirms what he pledged earlier this week – the party will fight in around 300 seats.
“We’re going to stand up and fight Labour in every seat in this country,” he says.
Turning his fire on the Tories, Farage talks about his decision to drop candidates in all 317 seats the Tories won at the last election.
“Far from being grateful, what we’ve seen in the past few days is wall to wall abuse coming from the Conservative
“And now what is going on today – and you don’t know this yet – is nothing sure of disgraceful. There’s a full scale attempt, going on as I speak, to stop men and women freely putting themselves up before the UK electorate. You would have thought this was Venezuela.
“Our people … are coming under relentless phone calls, emails and abuse – and being told they must stand down. That is happening in 21st century Britain. I think it’s a complete and utter disgrace.”
Ex-Apprentice contestant standing for Brexit Party in Hull
Former winner of The Apprentice Michelle Dewberry has revealed she’s standing for the Brexit Party in the Hull West & Hessle constituency.
“Brexiteers have been ignored, marginalised and stigmatised,” she said. “We are nice, good, decent people.”
Dewberry added: “Ever since 2016 I have been very passionate and consistent in my defence of Brexit and it’s my strong belief that it must, must be enacted.”
“If you’re a Brexit voter, we have been let down. Our town, our city, has been under Labour dominance for as long as I can remember … and it has to stop.”
In 2017, she stood as an independent in the same area and came fourth behind Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems.
Man who heckled Corbyn disgruntled ex-SNP activist
Yesterday Jeremy Corbyn was heckled by a Presbyterian minister now being investigated by the Church of Scotland.
Today, a man who has heckled Corbyn has turned out to be a Scottish nationalist who doesn’t think the SNP were nationalistic enough.
Bob Costello, 72, told the PA news agency he left the SNP because he did not believe the party was “wholeheartedly” campaigning for independence.
Costello, said: “Corbyn being Corbyn he changed his mind each hour. Yesterday he changed his mind about three times.
“I left the SNP in 2016 because I didn’t believe they were wholeheartedly for independence.”
Boris Johnson sings along with ‘Little Peter Rabbit’ song
The prime minister is out campaigning in the south west this morning, visiting a school near Taunton.
Johnson held Rosie the rabbit and sang songs with the pupils at West Monkton Primary School. He joined in with the Little Peter Rabbit song but did not join the children in doing the bunny ears action with his hands.
The PM then suggested singing The Wheels On the Bus, remarking: “The wheels are staying very much on the bus.”
Rebecca Pow, the Conservative candidate seeking re-election for Taunton Deane, also joked: “I think the kids are better at singing than the prime minister.”
Hilarious. Johnson later watched a pupil solve a Rubik’s Cube in around two minutes.
After the pupil solved it, Johnson said: “That’s fantastic. Is that the main subject on the curriculum? I cannot do it for toffee.”
Johnson asked a separate group of pupils for their favourite book before asking: “Have you got the Incredible Hulk? That’s the one I like.”
While looking at a Hulk book, one pupil shouted “boobies” to which the PM replied: “Those aren’t boobies, they are muscles.”
Corbyn heckled by Scottish nationalist in Dundee
Jeremy Corbyn was heckled by a supporter of another Scottish independence referendum as the Labour leader gave a speech at the Queens Hotel in Dundee.
On the second day of his Scottish tour, Corbyn was interrupted by a shouting member of the audience who asked him what he planned to do about the “will of the Scottish people”.
The man shouted: “Is this democracy?”
Corbyn was cheered by supporters after he said: “Democracy is not when you interrupt someone when they’re speaking.”
“Take your hands off me!” the heckler shouted as people grabbed him before he was then ejected.
Tories claim worst-ever A&E waiting times shows why it’s time to ‘stop Corbyn’
Bad news for the government. The Tories are hoping to avoid any negative headlines about the state of the NHS this winter.
But new data shows one in six patients waited longer than four hours in A&E in England during October – the worst-ever performance since a target was introduced in 2004.
Just 83.6 per cent of patients arriving at A&E were treated or admitted in four hours, according to the figures from NHS England.
Health secretary Matt Hancock responded by attacking Labour: “These figures show just how important it is that we stop Jeremy Corbyn. We are giving the biggest cash boost ever to our NHS, but Corbyn’s chaotic policies will put that at risk.”
Labour shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “The Conservatives have ushered in the worst NHS crisis on record.
“Under Boris Johnson the NHS is in crisis and we’re heading for a winter of abject misery for patients.”
‘Stay out of British politics’, Rory Stewart tells EU chief
Rory Stewart – the former Tory running to be London mayor – has suggested outgoing European Council president should keep his nose of our business.
Donald Tusk has suggested the election was a chance to stop Brexit, tell pro-EU voters “don’t give up”.
Stewart told Sky News: “People called Donald should stay out of British politics.
“It doesn’t help him, it doesn’t help us. I don’t think anyone responds well to that.”
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Labour vows to end gender pay gap by 2030
Labour is promising to end the gender pay gap by the end of the next decade, as new research claims it could take 60 years to close the disparity under current plans.
Dawn Butler, the shadow women and equalities minister, said action will include fining companies that fail to report their gender pay gap or take unsatisfactory measures.
The election campaign promise marks Equal Pay Day – the day when women effectively stop getting paid for the rest of the year compared with their male counterparts due to the difference in wages.
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Immigration targets are ‘arbitrary’, says Labour
Labour’s Laura Pidcock has called immigration targets are “arbitrary”.
The shadow secretary for employment rights said: “What we are certainly not going to do is put the lives of people on the line here in a general election campaign.”
She told the Today programme: “We know actually that migrant labour does not undercut wages, it is exploitative bosses that seek to undermine national agreements – that’s our emphasis.”
Questioned on whether she would be happy for immigration to rise under a Labour government, Pidcock added: “I think these targets are arbitrary.”
When pushed on leader of the Unite union Len McCluskey’s recent comments that “it’s wrong to have any greater free movement of labour unless you get stricter market regulation”, Pidcock said: “It isn’t right that we place the blame on numbers of immigrants for wages. Actually those employers that seek to undermine those national agreements are to blame for the exploitation.”
She added: “And he [McCluskey] talked about stricter regulations and that is what we are proposing.”
Pidcock added: “I think it’s a false flag, this issue of immigration.”
She then accused the media of “mischaracterising” McCluskey. Pidcock said: “What you are actually doing is mischaracterising Len McCluskey as some kind of false division in the Labour Party.”
Pushed again on whether she is in favour of extended free movement rights, as was voted for at the Labour Party’s conference, Pidcock added: “I am in favour of making sure there are conditions where no worker, whether they be British or a foreign worker are exploited in this country, because that is the real issue.”
Tory minister says Russian donors have right to ‘invest in’ British political scene
The Home Office minister Brandon Lewis has been asked about the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report into Russian influence – and donations that he himself has received from wealthy Russian businessmen.
Lewis said: “I have had donations from Lubov [Chernukhin] and also Alexander Temerko, as has the Conservative Party.
“They are British citizens, they are prominent British business people as well – Alexander himself has invested in the renewable energy industry in the East of England.
“So British citizens have the absolute right, as any other British citizen does, to invest in and be part of the British political scene, and I think it’s wrong to accuse them of anything else.”
On whether the report will be published, he said: “We’re now in purdah, which will delay that a little bit, but once the election is out of the way, we will publish that report.”
Tory minister admits Tories have ‘let people down’ on immigration
Brandon Lewis, the Home Office minister, has admitted that the Conservative party has previously “let people down” by failing to honour commitments to reduce immigration levels.
But this time will be different, he insists. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lewis said: “We are saying we want to reduce, and we will reduce, net migration. What we need to do to do that, and this is why we need a clear Conservative majority, is we need to first of all leave the EU so we can end free movement from the EU which obviously prevents us being able to control immigration at the moment.
“That then allows us to control immigration from the EU.
“We are not setting some arbitrary target. We want to introduce a new points-based system that is fair and equal to the entire world. That gives us control and we can then see immigration being reduced.”
Lewis continued: “I recognise that people, including myself when I was immigration minister, have talked about reducing migration and net migration for years; we’ve not done that.
“And that’s been, that’s let people down. Labour obviously let the people in from all over Europe before when they were in government.”
Pushed on the finer details of a points-based system, Home Office Minister Brandon Lewis said the party has “got to make sure we take our time with this and get this right”.
David Gauke: ‘I will campaign to remain’
The independent candidate David Gauke – a Tory cabinet minister until July – has reiterated his support for a second “Final Say” referendum on Brexit, and says he supports remaining in the EU.
Angered by the Lib Dems’ insistence on putting someone up against Gauke, Alistair Campbell has said he would help campaign for Gauke in South West Hertfordshire.
‘B******s’: Arron Banks denies having ‘Brexhaustion’
The Leave.EU co-founder Arron Banks has “given up” on Brexit and is suffering from “Brexhasution”, said Nigel Farage.
Responding to Bank’s comments that it was time for Farage “time to take the chips off the table” and get behind the Tories to deliver Brexit, Farage said: “He, I think, has just had enough of Brexit, it’s Brexhaustion and he’s happy, he was happy for some reason to go along with Mrs May and Boris’s deal.”
Banks has responded to that on Twitter saying: “Bollocks, I’m full of energy and vim. I just think he’s wrong … The country has “Brexhaustion”, not me!”
The old pals – once known as the “bad boys of Brexit” – are having quite the tiff, aren’t they?
Farage: tactical voting will decide election
Nigel Farage is under pressure to pull Brexit Party candidates from marginal seats with the 4pm deadline for nominations just hours away.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Farage put the onus on the Conservatives to withdraw in Labour areas, claiming Boris Johnson’s party would rather risk losing the election than forming a Leave alliance with his party.
Asked whether he was prepared to stand Brexit Party candidates down in more seats, he said: “This all started way back in September when I sent to No 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.”
He added: “There are very clearly seats in which we are the lead challenger and there are other seats in which they are the lead challenger to Labour, and we could have done a deal on that basis, but the priority for the Conservative Party, they do not want the Brexit Party to get seats in parliament.
“They’d rather risk not winning the election than having a Leave majority, a Leave alliance.”
According to The Telegraph, Johnson offered to put up only “paper candidates” in around 40 Labour-held seats, promising those Tories would only do “minimal campaigning” – so long as the Brexit Party withdrew everywhere else.
But Farage insisted the Tories withdraw completely in those Labour strongholds. “They refused to do it,” he told the newspaper.
Farage added that he believes the election will be decided by tactical voting. “Ultimately this election will be decided by tactical voting decisions all across the country.”
‘Don’t give up’ on stopping Brexit, says EU president
The outgoing European Council president Donald Tusk has urged opponents of Brexit not to “give up”, and warned that the UK would become a “second-rate player” after it leaves the EU.
The outgoing president also said the UK would become an “outsider” after Brexit, suggesting that the event was “the real end of the British Empire”.
Tusk suggested the general election gave voters the chance to half Britain’s exit from the EU.
“Don’t give up. In this match, we had added time, we are already in extra time, perhaps it will even go to penalties?”
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Labour and Lib Dem rivals urged to step aside in 90 key seats
Second referendum campaigners are urging Labour and Lib Dem candidates to step aside in 90 key seats to avoid a split between among pro-EU voters.
The eleventh-hour call from the People’s Vote campaign comes ahead of Thursday’s nomination deadline for candidates wanting to run for parliament at December’s general election.
Labour cuts Tory lead in weekly poll tracker
The updated Britain Elects poll tracker has Labour up 2.2 per cent, while the Tories are 0.2 per cent down. This is based on poll movements over the past week.
Support for the Brexit Party, meanwhile, has shown a significant dip over the past week, declining 1.3 per cent.
Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the general election campaign, with only 28 days to go until we head to the polls.
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