General election: Boris Johnson launches Conservative election campaign – as it happened | Politics

That’s all from us this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting. Here’s a summary of the day’s events:

• The prime minister launched the Conservative party’s election campaign, saying he did not want the vote, but felt he had had not choice but to call it. Boris Johnson, whose trustworthiness has been questioned by some who have worked with him, gave a speech in Birmingham that was riddled with misleading and outright false claims. Johnson had earlier used No 10 as a backdrop for a speech in which he made several similar claims.
• The debate about Labour’s direction under Jeremy Corbyn threatened to erupt again as the party’s deputy leader, with whom he has often clashed, announced he was stepping down. Tom Watson will leave his position within the party and will not seek reelection to the Commons. He said the decision was a “very personal” one. Read the full story on that in our splash:

• The Welsh secretary resigned as he faced questions over what he knew about the alleged role of a former aide in the collapse of a rape trial. There have been calls for Boris Johnson to drop Alun Cairns as a Conservative party candidate as the issue threatened to overshadow the party’s election campaign launch.
• The Tory MP, Andrew Bridgen, apologised for comments about Grenfell Tower disaster survivors. Bridgen was seeking to defend his party colleague, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who had suggested people who died in the tower lacked the “common sense” to ignore the advice of the fire brigade and leave.
• Jeremy Corbyn said he would be a very different type of PM to Boris Johnson. The Labour leader set out 10 goals for the government he hopes to form as he delivered a campaign speech in Telford. Corbyn refused to confirm John McDonnell’s claim they would both have to stand down if Labour loses and said billionaires were in a “very strong position to pay lot more in tax”.
• Three of the smaller opposition parties announced an electoral pact in some parts of the UK. The Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens finalised a plan to step aside for each other in 60 seats across England and Wales. Scottish Labour ruled out post-election pact with the SNP.
• The Green party launched its campaign in Bristol, where it has significant support. The local party believes it has a good chance of ousting Labour’s Bristol West incumbent, Thangam Debbonaire, in the 79% remain-voting constituency.
• Brexit is the UK’s “biggest mistake” since the war, according to the recently retired Commons Speaker, John Bercow. He said the Brexit crisis will not be resolved any time soon.

The Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens have finalised a plan to step aside for each other in 60 seats across England and Wales in the general election, Peter Walker and Heather Stewart write.

The alliance is intended to give a free run to one pro-remain party in each constituency.

The agreement, which does not include Labour, covers 49 seats in England and 11 in Wales. It was made under the banner of a cross-party group called Unite to Remain, which has spent several months trying to broker the plan.

A so-called progressive alliance plan, also including Labour, was attempted before the 2017 election but arrangements were only made for a handful of seats – in part because of the difficulty of getting local parties to agree.

The Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, has said:

We are delighted that an agreement has been reached. We would like to thank Unite to Remain for making this possible. This is a significant moment for all people who want to support remain candidates across the country. We look forward to sharing the detail of the seats tomorrow.