Johnson vows to repay trust of opposition voters

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed Saturday to repay the trust of former opposition voters who gave his Conservatives a mandate to take Britain out of the European Union next month.

Johnson toured a leftist bastion once represented by former Labour leader Tony Blair in a bid to show his intent to unite country after years of divisions over Brexit.

The northeastern region fell to the Tories in a general election Thursday that turned into a re-run of the 2016 EU membership referendum in which Johnson championed the Brexit cause.

Johnson told cheering campaigners that he understood how difficult it was for traditional Labour voters to switch sides and back his right-wing government in Britain´s biggest election in generations. “I can imagine people´s pencil´s hovering over the ballot paper and wavering before coming down for us and the Conservatives,” he said. “And I want the people of the northeast to know that we in the Conservative party — and I — will repay your trust.”