Jeremy Corbyn will attack Boris Johnson’s trustworthiness today as he fires the opening shots of a general election campaign - with a ballot expected this autumn.
The Labour leader swoops into a key Middle England battleground to draw battle lines and set out his stall to become Prime Minister when the country goes to the polls.
Speaking at a children’s centre in the key Tory-held marginal seat of Corby, Northants, he will say: “The Tories under Boris Johnson cannot be trusted to deliver on their quick fix election promises, because their first priority is tax cuts for the big corporations and the richest.
“Boris Johnson and the Tories can’t be trusted to deliver for the majority because they will always look after their own.
“Instead of fixing a failed system they will turbocharge its inequalities, insecurities and climate destruction.
“Labour can be trusted to deliver - to end austerity, to take on the elites and the vested interests holding people back, and to transform our country for the many, not the few.”
Mr Corbyn claims a general election will be a “crossroads for our country – a once-in-a-generation chance to change direction”.
Seeking to shift the focus from EU withdrawal, he will say: “While Brexit is the framework of the crisis we face, the problems facing our country run much deeper.
“A general election triggered by the Tory Brexit crisis will be a crossroads for our country.
“It will be a once-in-a-generation chance for a real change of direction, potentially on the scale of 1945 or 1979. Things cannot go on as they were before.”
