John Major urges public to vote against Tories in blow to Boris Johnson

A former Tory prime minister has urged the public to vote against the Tory party in this election in a major blow to Boris Johnson. Photo: PA - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

A former leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister has urged the public to vote against the Tory party in this election in a major blow to Boris Johnson.

John Major, who led the party from 1990 to 1997, has given his support to three Tory rebels in key seats who have put themselves forward against the official Conservative candidates.

Major said he backs David Gauke, Dominic Grieve and Anne Milton, who were all booted out of the party by the prime minister and are now standing as independent candidates.

Alongside Tony Blair, former Labour prime minister, Major will address a rally saying the election is the “final chance” to affect Brexit.

Major will say old “tribal loyalties” are being loosened by Brexit at the ‘Stop the Brexit Landslide’ rally, organised by Final Say campaigners, which will see thousands of people descend on Westminster.

Major will call Brexit “the worst foreign policy decision” in his lifetime, adding: “It will affect nearly every single aspect of our lives for many decades to come.”

His speech will continue: “It will make our country poorer and weaker. It will hurt most those who have least.

“Never have the stakes been higher, especially for the young. Brexit may even break up our historic United Kingdom.

“When the nation voted on Brexit they did so on a diet of fiction and undeliverable promises.

“As the facts become known, it is extraordinary that a new vote is denied: extraordinary, and undemocratic.

“Your vote is absolutely crucial – for you have the longest lease on our country’s future, and our place in the wider world. Don’t wake up on Friday, 13 December and regret not making a choice. So choose the future you believe in – for your own generation and the next.”

Blair will also tell voters to deny the prime minister a majority.

He will say: “This Conservative Party which now expels the likes of Michael Heseltine, disowns the statesmanship of John Major, a party whose chancellor as of July this year is now exiled in the wilderness for the temerity to say what he knows to be true, namely that a No Deal Brexit is a risk no responsible Government would take, such a Conservative Party does not deserve to govern unchecked and the country would not be wise to let them.

“It’s not Brexit that’s getting done. We’re getting done.”