PM's election campaign launch marred by gaffe, resignation, doctored video
BIRMINGHAM, LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to fire up supporters with a Brexit rallying cry on Wednesday after the first day of his election campaign was marred by a ministerial resignation, a gaffe about a deadly tower blaze and a doctored video advert.
Johnson called a snap Dec. 12 election in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock that he says has paralysed Britain for more than three years and had started to undermine confidence in the world’s fifth largest economy.
But just an hour after meeting Queen Elizabeth to formally begin the campaign, Johnson’s minister for Wales, Alun Cairns, resigned after being accused of lying about his knowledge about an aide who allegedly sabotaged a rape trial..
At the start of the campaign, Johnson’s Conservatives enjoy a lead over the opposition Labour Party of between 7 and 17 percentage points, though pollsters warn that their models are wilting beside the Brexit furnace.
Johnson held a rally in Birmingham, casting the election as the most important in a generation and setting out the campaign message he will take across the country.
“Let’s get Brexit done, my friends, and get on with our project of sensible, moderate, but tax-cutting one-nation Conservatism,” he said to loud cheers from party supporters waving banners promoting health, education and policing reforms.
Johnson said Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn hated wealth and was thus like Soviet leader Josef Stalin - who sent millions to their deaths in labour camps. Corbyn said such remarks were “nonsense” that the super-rich came up with to avoid paying more tax.
Earlier, Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly spent the morning defending distributing a doctored video clip of a rival Labour politician instead of touting Johnson’s election campaign launch.
Another prominent Conservative, Jacob Rees-Mogg, apologised on Tuesday after he suggested that victims of the 2017 blaze at London’s Grenfell Tower should have used common sense to ignore firefighters’ instructions to stay in the burning building.