Labour candidate Cat Smith and former Conservative MP Harold Elletson

Harold Elletson, who represented the Conservative Party in Blackpool North between 1992 and 1997, said the election on December 12 “is the most important since the second world war”.

Dr Elletson joined the Liberal Democrats in 2002, before co-founding the Northern Party in 2014.

He stood for election in Lancaster and Fleetwood in 2015, and was also chairman of The Campaign for the North, which sought to bring northern counties together in a democratic state with powers equal to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or London, and retaining membership of the European Union.

Dr Elletson, who lives at Parrox Hall in Preesall, and works as an international communications and public affairs consultant, has now signed Cat Smith’s nomination papers, saying Britain is “facing economic disaster and the prospect of a Conservative Government with a hard-right agenda”.