Boris Johnson will tour Labour’s heartlands in the last days of the election campaign in an attempt to sweep up Brexit-backing voters - but the prime minister is also facing a rearguard action to protect vulnerable Tory-held seats.
With just three full days of campaigning to go until polling, Johnson will blast Labour for sticking “two fingers up to the public” on Brexit during his visits to Leave-voting seats. But the move follows having to campaign in Iain Duncan Smith’s London constituency on Sunday as the former Tory party leader struggles to avoid being ousted by, in part, a tactical voting campaign.
The Tories are attempting to crack the so-called “red wall” of Labour seats across the North of England and deliver a Conservative majority, and Johnson will spend Monday in the Leave-voting regions of the Humber and Wearside.
But the Conservative Party is also on the defensive in areas where anti-Tory tactical voting could come into play. As well Brexiteer Duncan Smith’s Chingford and Woodford Green, high-profile constituencies thought to be under threat include Dominic Raab’s Esher and Walton in Surrey, where the Lib Dems are breathing down his neck.
Johnson will also visit the South West on Monday, the region where David Cameron’s success in ousting Lib Dems in 2015 was key to securing an unexpected majority. St Ives in Cornwall, Totnes in Devon (where Sarah Wollaston is standing as a Lib Dem in the seat she held for nine years as a Tory) and East Devon, which YouGov said is “most likely seat to elect an independent”, also require defending.
The PM plans to visit every region in the country before polling day, also taking in the North Wales, West Yorkshire and East Anglia.
Meanwhile, shadow chancellor John McDonnell will use a speech to lay out the main priorities for the first hundred days of a Labour government.
In London, the senior Labour figure is expected to announce that his first Budget would end austerity, while seeking to get investment flowing to communities that had been “neglected for decades” as part of his party’s “green industrial revolution”.
In the city of Sunderland, where the full extent of the swing towards Leave was seen for the first time on referendum night, Johnson will tell North East voters that it is Labour that has “let you down most of all” on Brexit.
“Under Jeremy Corbyn, they promised to honour the result of the referendum – before voting against Brexit every chance they had,” the Conservative Party leader will say.
“They won their seats on a false prospectus and then stuck two fingers up to the public.
“Now they are proposing another referendum – this time rigging the result by extending the franchise to two million EU citizens.
“It’s been the great betrayal, orchestrated from Islington by politicians who sneer at your values and ignore your votes.”
All three MPs representing Sunderland and Washington are standing on a ticket of holding a second referendum on a Labour Brexit deal.
Car manufacturer Nissan, which employs 7,000 people in the city, has spoken out against the threat of a no-deal Brexit – an outcome that remains a possibility at the end of the transition period.
In Sunderland, Johnson is planning to tell Leavers that it was in their city that the Brexit “roar” was first heard.
He will say: “Parliament has bent every rule and broken every convention as it has delayed, diluted and denied Brexit.
“Remain MPs who said at the last election they would deliver Brexit shamefully did the exact opposite when they got to Westminster.”
McDonnell will also confirm that the process for bringing key utilities into public ownership will start within the first four months of a Jeremy Corbyn premiership.
In his speech, McDonnell will pledge to “put British industry back on the map” during a Labour tenure.
“In too many parts of the country, we have been wasting people’s potential,” he is expected to say.
“That’s down to successive governments sitting back and leaving the fate of whole communities at the mercy of market forces.
“Good jobs and whole industries that were once the pride of our country have been lost and replaced with dreary, exploitative, insecure and low paid jobs. Or in some cases no jobs at all.
“No wonder people feel disillusioned in politicians.
“As our manifesto makes clear, turning these two things around will be our number one priority in government.
“Our Green Industrial Revolution will deliver the changes we need to avert climate catastrophe. And it will put British industry back on the map, bringing prosperity to every part of our country.
“It will give every community something to be proud of.”