May to tellWales today that Labour has taken the nation for granted

PRIME Minister Theresa May will launch her party’s Welsh manifesto in north Wales this morning as the Tories push for an historic election result.

Pundits suggest the Conservatives could be on course to win a majority of seats in Wales for the first time since the 19th century.

Mrs May will tell an audience in north Wales that Labour has taken the nation “for granted” and say the nation has been hit with an “acute” sense of disenchantment.

The Tory leader has pledged that the Severn Crossing tolls will be scrapped but the party has been criticised for not mentioning the proposed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon in the manifesto.

Mrs May will seek to put the focus on Brexit in her Welsh speech.

Pointing to calls for negotiations to start 11 days after the election, she will claim there is “no time to waste”.

She will say: “There are just 17 days to go until this crucial General Election. Just 11 days after that the European Union wants the Brexit negotiations to begin.

“The UK’s seat at the negotiating table will be filled by me or Jeremy Corbyn. The deal we seek will be negotiated by me or Jeremy Corbyn.

“There will be no time to waste and no time for a new government to find its way.”

Mrs May will say voters can grant her a “strong hand” by backing Conservative candidates. She will say the alternative is the “weak hand of Jeremy Corbyn backed by the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the SNP who don’t want Brexit to succeed.”

The Tory leader will claim that a vote for Labour, the Lib Dems or Plaid “is a vote to send Jeremy Corbyn into the negotiating chamber on our behalf”.

She will say: “That is the stark reality of the choice that we face – the choice we must focus on over the next 17 days.”

Mrs May will argue Britain needs “someone utterly determined to deliver the democratic will of the British people”.

The Prime Minister will make a new bid for the support of “ordinary working people”.

She will say: “[To] those that look to their government and their politicians for a little help and support, I’m backing you too. Because too often in the past, ordinary working people have found the help and support they need just isn’t there.”

Mrs May will claim the “sense of disenchantment” is “particularly acute” in Wales.

She will say: “We saw that when people [across] Wales chose to ignore the hysterical warnings of Labour, Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat politicians in Cardiff Bay, and voted to leave the EU. We see it now in the way those same politicians refuse to respect that vote as they try to find new ways to put obstacles in our way.

“And the cause of that emerging gulf is clear. It is because the Labour Party has taken people in Wales for granted for decades.”