Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has claimed
Boris Johnson is “in cahoots” with Nigel Farage, and urged voters in the Midlands and the north to stick with Labour, or risk the election of “the most hard-right government we’ve seen since Margaret Thatcher”.
Labour has seized on Farage’s announcement on Monday that Brexit party candidates would stand aside in Conservative-held seats to help deliver Johnson a majority.
“Nigel Farage is working in cahoots with Boris Johnson, trying to hoodwink the public – and they are very friendly with Donald Trump,” Rayner told the Guardian.
She claimed all three men want “a hard-right nasty Tory government, that will privatise and deregulate our markets – and they will make Margaret Thatcher look like a pussycat”.
Johnson welcomed
Farage’s decision to stand down more than 300 candidates on Monday; but Downing Street has denied any pact between the two parties.
Labour strategists fear the Brexit party’s absence in more than 300 seats will make it harder for them to take the Tory-held marginals they must win to get Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street, though they also hope the Brexit party will split the leave vote in some of those seats they need to hold.
Rayner acknowledged that many voters in constituencies like hers, Ashton-under-Lyne on Tameside, felt disappointed that Brexit has not yet happened.
“They feel let down, and they’ve got a right to feel let down. For three years, they were promised that Brexit will be done, and over two prime ministers they’ve not delivered it.”