TOM Harris, the former Labour minister, has revealed he will be voting for Boris Johnson's Conservatives in the election, admitting the idea of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister "chills me to the bone".
The ex-Glasgow South MP, who served as a junior minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, branded the Labour Party leader an "extremist" and claimed he was "not someone who can be trusted with the security of the nation".
Suggestions that a future Labour government would allow a second vote on Scottish independence "add to the many reasons to vote against the Labour Party", Mr Harris noted.
His comments follow those of fellow former Labour MPs Ian Austin and John Woodcock, who insisted Mr Corbyn was not fit to be PM, and coincide with the Labour leader's two-day campaign tour of Scotland.
Mr Harris, who announced in 2018 that he had left the Labour Party, said Mr Corbyn "represents a kind of strain of left-wing politics that is a compete anathema to the traditional Labour Party".
He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: "He is not someone who can be trusted with the security of the nation as far as defence is concerned, he is a man who has instinctively sided with our country's enemies over the years he has been an MP. The idea of him becoming prime minister just chills me to the bone.
"The only way of stopping Corbyn becoming Prime Minister is to vote for Boris Johnson's Conservatives, it is a very simple, logical conclusion."
Mr Harris, who chaired the Scottish Vote Leave campaign in 2016, claimed security services in countries such as America and Australia "look at Jeremy Corbyn with great concern because they just don't feel this is a man that can be trusted with the fundamental responsibility of protecting the country; that is the first responsibility of any government".
He added: "I opposed him strongly even before he talked about him betraying the Scottish people and the Scottish Labour Party by allowing a second referendum. But, yes, that does add to the many reasons to vote against the Labour Party."
The former MP also insisted the only way Labour would "reform" and remove him as leader would be if it lost votes.
"The only way you will get reform in the Labour Party now, they only way they will come to their senses, is if they are seen to suffer the consequences of putting someone like Jeremy Corbyn at the head of their party."
In response, Tory MSP Annie Wells welcomed his remarks as "an important intervention from a highly respected former Labour MP".
She said: "Labour voters don't have to agree with everything the Scottish Conservatives do or say.
"But if they're serious about keeping Scotland in the UK and finally moving on from a decade of chaos and division, there really is only one party for them."
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