FORMER Sunderland football manager Peter Reid exploded with fury after Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the city on Monday, and he channelled his anger to support North-East Labour candidates who have led the way in calling for a second Brexit referendum.

Mr Reid said: “If this election was a match, I’d have probably been sent off. There is no way I could stay on the touchline and watch the good people of Sunderland or Sedgefield or the wider North-East be lied to and tricked by the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.”

Mr Reid, like fellow former footballer Gary Lineker, has been outspoken in his support for a “people’s vote”, although Sunderland voted by 61 per cent to leave the EU.

Mr Reid, who managed the Black Cats from 1995 and 2002 during one of the most successful spells in the club’s history, said: “There’s a statue next to the Stadium of Light. A working-class man in a flat clap, a woman wearing a scarf and two children reaching for a ball. No top hat and tails. No sign of privilege. No Eton scarf or Bullingdon Club cravat. But a placard saying today’s fans represent those past and those who will follow.

“It’s the same this election. How people vote on Thursday impacts on the lives of kids following. You vote Tory or Brexit Party then you take opportunity away from kids of the North East, you vote to make the poorest poorer, you vote to put our NHS in the sweaty hands of Donald Trump. It’s not just an own goal, it’s self-relegation.

“And Johnson is not your mate. Ex-Tory Farage is not your mate. They just want your votes. And are hoping to sell us a pup twice. To con us twice. First it was on the side of a big red bus, now it’s promises of 50,000 nurses which turns out to be 31,000 or 40 new hospitals that turn out to be six."

Referring to an article that Mr Johnson wrote in 1995 in the Spectator magazine, Mr Reid said: “Johnson said working class men ‘are likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless.’ He thinks he can get away with it. Well, I've a message for Boris Johnson. The people who shouted us on to promotion twice and finishing seventh twice, were none of those things. They were smart, honest people full of hope.

“As am I. Which is why I hope people will vote for Phil Wilson in Sedgefield or Bridget Phillipson and Julie Elliott in Sunderland. People from the area who know its values, who have been there through good times and bad, and who genuinely care about the people of the North-East – not just their votes.”