General election 2019: Boris Johnson's a liar and Jeremy Corbyn supports terrorists so I'm voting Lib Dem, says Nick Boles

Former Conservative minister Nick Boles today announced he will vote for the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to back anyone but the “appalling choice” between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Boles, who resigned the Conservative whip over Brexit, claimed voters “wouldn’t trust either of the Prime Ministerial candidates to mind your children for an hour let alone run the country”.

Writing in tonight’s Evening Standard , he attacked the Prime Minister as “a compulsive liar who has betrayed every single person he has ever had any dealings with”.

He attacked Mr Corbyn as “a blinkered Pharisee” with “a lifetime of support for terrorists, murderers and racist thugs” whose supporters had hounded out Jewish Labour MPs.

Mr Boles said he came to respect MPs in other parties after leaving the Conservatives.

He appealed: “You must reject the Appalling Choice. Say no to Johnson and Corbyn and all of their candidates. Start the process of building something new.”

Mr Boles was Mr Johnson’s chief of staff when the latter was first elected Mayor of London in 2008.

But he says his former boss “has turned the party of Disraeli and Churchill into a vehicle for shrill English nationalism” and would “betray the NHS in a heartbeat”.

He added: “It is a choice about the future of our country, the values we want it to stand for, the principles we want it to be governed by.”