UK election: Brexit boost as Boris reveals plan for first 100 days

Boris Johnson has won a boost from Brexit supporters as he set out a plan for his first 100 days in office.

Boris Johnson uses a sewing machine at John Smedley Mill in Matlock, central England. Picture: AFP

Boris Johnson has won a boost from Brexit supporters as he marked one week until election day by setting out a plan for his first 100 days in office.

The Conservative Prime Minister appears increasingly confident of victory in next Thursday’s general election as he remains about 10 points ahead of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in opinion polls.

The electoral threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, meanwhile, receded further with the ­decision of four of its European Parliament MPs to endorse Mr Johnson.

The Prime Minister has promised to get Britain out of the EU on January 31, after years of turmoil sparked by the 2016 referendum vote for Brexit.

But he says this is only possible if he wins a majority of seats in the House of Commons next week, ­allowing him to get his EU divorce deal through parliament.

“2020 will then be the year we finally put behind us the arguments and uncertainty over ­Brexit,” he said.

In a further enticement, he promised an unspecified tax cut for “hard-working families”, which he said would be unveiled in a post-Brexit budget in February.

Within 100 days of taking ­office, he vowed to pass laws to ­increase school funding and toughen sentencing laws, as well as beginning moves to shake up the immigration system.

Speaking to workers on a campaign visit to a factory in Derbyshire, central England, Mr Johnson insisted he was leading a “new government, with a new ­approach”.

But although he only took ­office in July, Labour questioned his promise of change, given the Conservatives have been in power since 2010.

“The Tories have had 3494 days in office, and in those days we’ve seen child poverty soar, rising homelessness, rising food-bank use, and violent crime is up too,” said Labour’s Andrew Gwynne.

Jeremy Corbyn prepares for a speech in Birmingham on Thursday. Picture: Getty Imagess

The anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, said the plan for government was “pure fantasy”.

“A Tory government would ­remain completely consumed by Brexit not just for the next 100 days, but for years to come,” said deputy leader Ed Davey.

Labour is offering a fresh referendum on Brexit but has sought to focus its campaign on a radical agenda to address inequality, from nationalising key industries to borrowing heavily to fund a huge investment drive.

Chris Curtis, political research manager at polling firm YouGov, said the Tories were heading for a “fairly comfortable majority” next week.

But he said a high degree of volatility in voting intentions “means that we shouldn’t rule out a late swing towards one party or another”.

Mr Farage’s Brexit Party has been nipping at the heels of the Conservatives for months, threatening to take EU referendum “Leave” voters from Mr Johnson with its promise of a clean break with Brussels.

But the party has suffered a ­series of setbacks and four of its MEPs — elected on a huge show of support for the party in May’s European elections — announced late on Thursday they were backing the Conservatives.

Among them is Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexit supporter and member of cabinet. She said Mr Johnson’s EU divorce deal, which Mr Farage rejected as “Brexit in name only”, would get Britain out of the EU and return sovereignty to Britain. “That is what most Brexiteers I’ve ever met have been fighting for,” she said.

With Labour backing a second referendum, she added: “Boris’s deal is the only Leave option we have.”

Mr Farage said he was “disappointed” at the departures, the latest setback after he reluctantly agreed not to challenge Conservative MPs standing at the election. But he said his Brexit Party was wooing voters in traditional Labour areas of England, making it easier for Conservatives to win.

Len McCluskey, the head of the Unite trade union who is close to Mr Corbyn, this week admitted Labour was struggling to win over Brexit-backing voters.

AFP