Jeremy Corbyn has put Labour on a firm election footing at a rally in Manchester, warning Boris Johnson the party was now ‘limbering up’ for a snap poll.

At an event at the Irish World Heritage Centre in Cheetham Hill, the Labour leader said he and activists would now be spending the summer preparing to take on the Tories, including in marginal Leave-leaning seats.

Promising a tour that would take in both Scotland and marginal Tory seats in the Midlands, he also accused Johnson of seeking a ‘sweetheart’ trade deal with Donald Trump that would lead to the sale of the NHS.

He told gathered Labour members: “Tomorrow I’ll be in Mansfield and Nottingham in the east Midlands, because we’ve got to gain seats in the east Midlands, we’ve got to gain seats in these places that have seen no real investment since the end of the miner’s strike.

“I don’t know whether a general election is coming but I’ll tell you what.

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“This is just the limbering up process. We’re going to do it all across the country and we’re going to win it.

“Why? Because of the uncertainty and insecurity so many people face in their lives.”

Ahead of a visit to the region by Boris Johnson tomorrow, Corbyn made repeatedly clear that the party was expecting the new Prime Minister to call an election soon, adding of the last Labour manifesto, 'I don’t know when a general election will be, but just suppose it happened to be 2019 - the 2019 vintage will be even better’.

Reeling off a list of Labour priorities, including a radical ‘green industrial revolution’ to tackle jobs and climate change, he warned Boris Johnson would sell off the NHS to private American investors.

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“Our job is to take Johnson and his team to task,” he said.

“They want us to go off the edge of a cliff at the end of October, a no deal Brexit.

“We will do everything we can to stop that.

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"We will do everything to protect jobs, investment, workers rights, consumer rights, environmental protections and all of the things that go with it, because at the back of it all for Johnson is a sweetheart deal with Donald Trump.

“He’s not being called ‘Britain’s Trump’ without reason. Anybody else would be embarrassed to be called ‘Britain’s Trump’.

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“I would see it as a term of abuse quite honestly but he is apparently glorying in this title.”

Arguing Boris Johnson was elected by fewer people than go to a cup final - also adding 'they were hardly the kind of people who would go to the average cup final' - he said: "Where’s the mandate?

“Where’s the mandate for him to become Prime Minister, this right wing government to take over? So our summer is going to be one of campaigning."

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