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Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has refused to strike a deal with the Greens over the upcoming Metro Mayor and general elections.

Mr Farron visited Bristol this evening to throw his weight behind Stephen Williams' bid to become the region's first Metro Mayor.

But the trip acquired a new significance after Theresa May called a snap general election this morning.

Mr Farron said a vote for his party would be a ‘change in the direction of the country’ and was the only credible opposition.

There had been rumours the Greens were willing to step aside from the Metro Mayor poll, where they are running a distant fifth in the bookies' odds, if the Lib Dems made a similar gesture in the Bristol West Parliamentary seat, where Mr Williams was beaten into third place by the Greens as Labour's Thangham Debbonaire won in 2015.

However, Mr Farron said his party would do everything it could to make big gains in the West Country during both elections.

Discussing the party's promise to hold another referendum, Mr Farron argued that, while a majority of people voted for Brexit, they had not been asked if they wanted to leave the single market.

He also said voters were promised, during last year's campaigning, that additional money was going to be ploughed into resources, such as the NHS, not taken away.

Mr Farron said: “Labour is a divided, weak party which isn’t fit to run this country or even be a credible opposition.

“Labour is sitting on the fence on one of the most important issues of our century.

“We have a clear and strong message: vote for us if you don’t like path Theresa May is taking this country.

“When people voted for Brexit, the Tories made all kinds of assumptions about what they mean.

“No one voted to leave the single market; that wasn’t on the ballot paper. This move is posing a very serious risk to our economy and jobs here in Bristol.

“With Brexit and Trump, there is an assumption that almost anything can happen - but there’s nothing to say that always has to be bad.

“Anything can happen - and that includes the opportunity for positive change, if people vote for us.

"Only the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Conservative majority.”

With just 51 days to go until the general election, Mr Farron took the opportunity to praise Claire Young, the new candidate for Thornbury and Yate.

He said: "She's a really strong candidate and has a very good chance of winning in this next election."

In 2015, the party lost their safe seat in a shock win by Conservative MP Luke Hall.

Since then the party has been blasted for overspending on their election campaign because they marked costs from a Tory Battle Bus as national funding when it should have been recorded as local spending.

There is a cap on how much each local candidate can fork out during a campaign and after cash spent on the Battlebus was included Mr Hall is accused exceeding his limit.