Boris Johnson news: Farage sparks backlash after ‘bottling it’ by dropping Brexit Party candidates in Tory-held seats

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the general election, as the campaign enters its second full week.

Party leaders make pledges to help ex-service personnel

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn will both unveil pledges to help veterans after the election campaign held a sombre pause to mark Remembrance Sunday.

The prime minister will visit the Black Country on Armistice Day where he will lay out measures to help former service personnel into work, including guaranteed job interviews for public sector roles and tax cuts for businesses that employ veterans.

Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn revealed that the Labour manifesto would contain a string of pledges to bolster working conditions for the forces and their families.

And Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson will promise that veterans born outside the UK would be exempt from paying settlement fees under her party’s plans.

Tory pledge to end ‘unfair trials’ not an ‘amnesty’, says defence minister

Defence secretary Ben Wallace has said that a Tory party pledge to protect veterans from prosecution is not an “amnesty”.

The Conservatives want to end “unfair trials” of veterans where no new evidence has been produced and the accusations have been questioned exhaustively in court by amending the Human Rights Act so it does not apply to incidents – including deaths in Northern Ireland during the Troubles – which took place before the law came into force in 2000.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Wallace said: “This isn’t an amnesty, because if people haven’t been investigated and they haven’t had an inquest, then of course, they won't be able to avail themselves of that.

“This is about repeated and vexatious claims.”

He added: “This is about people who have already had trials, have already been prosecuted, already had inquests.”

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said: “It really is important that they do something about this vexatious process.”

But human rights lawyer Mark Stephens claimed: “This sounds like clickbait for Tory voters.”

Leave.EU threatens Farage with tactical voting app

Leading Brexiteers have urged Nigel Farage stand down hundreds of Brexit Party candidates across the country.

If Farage does not pull candidates, Banks’s Leave.EU group is threatening to release a tactical voting app showing Leave voters who they should back in every seat.

According to The Times, the app is set to tell voters to back Brexit Party candidates in only around 40 Labour seats where the Tories are thought to be “no hopers”.

Arron Banks, co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign, said the prospect of Corbyn getting the keys to No 10 should “cool egos”, while former Brexit Party candidate Philip Walling asked Farage “examine your conscience in the cold light of reason”.

Tory MP Andrew Bridge has reportedly been trying to broker a deal that would see Farage withdraw hundreds of his candidates in exchange for a promise that a no-deal Brexit remains an option if a trade deal hasn’t been reached with the EU by the end of 2020.

Farage has warned “the clock is ticking” on the deadline for candidate nominations this Thursday.

But with the Brexit Party falling in several recent polls, Farage appears to be the one under pressure to relent.

Farage likened to Frodo Baggins ‘succumbing to temptation’

Nigel Farage has been compared to Frodo Baggins selfishly keeping the One Ring to himself in Lord of the Rings by a leading Tory commentator.

Theresa May’s key adviser Nick Timothy – who recent missed out on a safe Tory seat – claimed friends of Nigel Farage “have taken to comparing him to Frodo” over his refusal to stand down Brexit Party candidates.

Writing in The Telegraph, Timothy said:  “In Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins undertakes an epic journey and battles all as he seeks to destroy the One Ring, which gives absolute power to whoever wears it. When Frodo finally reaches the

Fire of Mount Doom, he succumbs to temptation and chooses not to destroy the ring, but keep it for himself.

“Recently, friends of Nigel Farage have taken to comparing him to Frodo.”

Accusing Farage is deliberately splitting the Leave vote, Timothy concluded: “In Lord of the Rings, good fortune means the ring is destroyed despite Frodo’s submission to greed and vanity. But in real life, we cannot wait for a stroke of luck. Farage needs to stop, before he kills his greatest achievement.”

‘The abuse made me physically ill’: Luciana Berger reveals toll of fighting antisemitism 

Luciana Berger, the Lib Dem candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, has spoken about her relief at leaving the Labout party.

“I left behind a very toxic party on every level,” she tells The Independent while out door-knocking. “I attended my last Labour Party meeting in October last year and vowed never to go back because it was so unpleasant – it was so toxic, there was no humanity in the room.”

Read the interview with our correspondent Benjamin Kentish here:

Emily Thornberry says Labour ‘are not pacifists’

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said she supports the Tories’ plans to end vexatious legal claims against veterans, but added that it should be up to the prosecuting authorities.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “Their main purpose is to stop vexatious and unfair actions; who could be against that? I don’t think that, personally, you need to change the Human Rights Act about that.”

She added: “In the end, it will be for the prosecuting authorities to decide when they prosecute and when they don't prosecute, and of course they shouldn’t allow for vexatious or unfair actions.”

Asked if she could name a time when Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has ever backed the use of British forces overseas, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: “No, not off the top of my head.”

“I think that people from the military listening to the radio this morning, and those from their families and supporters, would want the same that we do, which is if and when we use military action, we use military action in order to ensure we can stop genocides or unfair actions happening.

“But we make sure by intervening that we can actually make the situation better.”

She continued: “In principle, Jeremy is not a pacifist. We are not pacifists. There will be times when we need to use military force but when we use it we need to ensure that the use of the military force actually makes the situation better in the long term.”

Challenged on whether Corbyn would ever authorise a nuclear strike as PM, Thornberry said: “The Labour party policy is that we have Trident, the decision has been made, and now we have nuclear submarines.”

Former Labour MP tells voters to back Boris Johnson

Gisela Stuart, the former Labour MP who was also a chair of the official Leave campaign, has told talkRADIO she is still a Labour member – despite urging people to vote for the Tories at this election.

Many have suggested she won’t be member much longer.

Lib Dems reveal what ‘skills wallets’ means

The Liberal Democrats have promised every adult in England £10,000 to spend on education and training throughout their life.

The so-called “skills wallet” scheme will see people get £4,000 at 25; £3,000 at 40 and another £3,000 at 55, the party explained.

The money can only go towards approved education and training courses - and will be paid for by reversing cuts to corporation tax to bring the rate back to 20 per cent.

It follows a mysterious Facebook ad which appeared over the weekend in which the party boasted about a “skills wallets” policy, without actually explaining what it meant.

Lib Dem business spokesman Sam Gyimah said: “In an ever-changing workplace people often need to develop new skills, but the cost of courses and qualifications shuts too many people out.

“We will create a new era of learning throughout adult life. By stopping Brexit and investing in our skills wallets, Liberal

Democrats will empower people to develop new skills so that they can thrive in the technologies and industries that are key to the UK's economic future and prosperity.”

Education is devolved so the policy applies to England only, but extra funding will be available under the Barnett formula for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the party added.

UK avoids falling into recession with 0.3 per cent growth

The UK has avoided falling into a recession after the economy eked out 0.3 per cent growth in a sluggish third quarter of the year marred by Brexit uncertainty and a global slowdown.

Chancellor Sajid Javid will be relieved, but the level of growth isn’t anything to boast about.

“Looking at the picture over the last year, growth slowed to its lowest rate in almost a decade,” said a spokesperson for the Office for National Statistics.