A former Labour MP and aide to Gordon Brown, Ian Austin, urged Labour voters to support Boris Johnson at the next general election in a bid to prevent Jeremy Corbyn from entering Number 10. Mr McDonnell was challenged on Mr Austin’s shocking position that hit the Labour Party on Thursday morning after he delivered a speech outlining Labour’s spending pledges. An ITV reporter asked the Labour frontbencher: “Mr McDonnell you’re urging people to think of the choice before them when they vote. Why has Ian Austin and the Jewish Chronicle decided that that choice must not be Labour?”

But at the mention of Ian Austin’s name, Labour supporters present at the speech booed the reporter forcing Mr McDonnell to signal them to be quiet.

The Shadow Chancellor then replied: “I don’t believe that whatever smears and all the rest that will come out of elements of the right-wing media or whatever.

“I think people will cut through all that because what we’re addressing is their daily lives.

“How we can tackle those in poverty but even those – you know we’ve four an a half million children in poverty – two-thirds of them are from families who are in work.

“What does that say about wages?”

Ian Austin, an ex-Labour MP and former press secretary to Gordon Brown, has suggested “decent traditional patriotic Labour voters” should vote Tory.

He told the BBC’s Today programme: “I’m not a Tory but I wouldn’t say Boris Johnson is unfit to be our prime minister in the way that I say that about Jeremy Corbyn.”

Mr Austin said Tom Watson, who quit on Wednesday as deputy Labour leader and MP, was “appalled” by the “scandal of anti-semitism” that had grown in the party.

“I think it is enormously significant,” Mr Austin said of the decision.

“If Tom thought that Jeremy Corbyn was fit to lead our country and fit to form a government, then he would have been in that Cabinet. Would he really be standing down?

“Anybody who has spoken to Tom knows what he thinks about Jeremy Corbyn.

“More importantly, they know how appalled he is, like so many other people, by the scandal of anti-semitisim that has poisoned the Labour Parry under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.”

Asked if he was advocating for the electorate to vote for Boris Johnson over Jeremy Corbyn on December 12, the disgruntled ex-Labour MP for Dudley said: “I am.”

Mr Austin added: “Look, the public has to make this choice. The British people have to decide this.

“Lots of traditional Labour voters are going to be grappling with this question.

“If they have got to face up to that, then I don’t think people like me should have the luxury of running away from it.

“What Jeremy Corbyn has done to the Labour Party, I don’t want him to be able to do that to the country.”

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In his speech to Labour supporters in Liverpool, Mr McDonnell pledged to spend £250billion of investment with the Green Transformation Fund and an extra £150billion in a new Social Transformation Fund – a staggering total of £400 billion.

He said: “We’ll deliver £250billion of investment here and around the country over the next ten years through our Green Transformation Fund. Upgrading our energy, transport and other networks. To meet our targets and decarbonise as thoroughly and fast as our commitment to a just transition will allow.

“But it’s not just the natural world that’s been neglected. So we’ll also commit to an additional £150billion in a new Social Transformation Fund spent over the first five years of our Labour government.

“The Social Transformation Fund will begin the urgent task of repairing our social fabric that the Tories have torn apart. £150billion to replace, upgrade and expand our schools, hospitals, care homes and council houses. To deal with the human emergency which the Tories have created, alongside the climate emergency.

“Those twin challenges are an opportunity for our country. A once in a lifetime opportunity to upgrade our infrastructure for good, because we have no choice. We have to do it. If we are to stand any chance of tackling climate change. If we are to stand any chance of providing a decent quality of life for all our people. If we are to have any hope of bringing communities back together.

“We have to act now and act big and decisively.”

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