NICOLA Sturgeon is Jeremy Corbyn’s “route to power”, Boris Johnson said in a campaign speech yesterday.

In a factory-floor speech in the West Midlands, Johnson said the SNP leader is her Labour counterpart’s “yokemate of destiny” as he urged voters to back the Tories and “get Brexit done”.

Any other outcome on December 12, Johnson said, would lead to “dither and delay” and two “chaotic” referendums on both EU withdrawal and the future of the union.

In a typically rambling statement, Johnson said: “You’ve got Corbyn himself saying he would have a referendum but not immediately in the next parliament – I think that’s what he’s saying.

“You’ve got Nicola Sturgeon who is his route to power, who is his path to power, his yokemate of destiny, saying that she wants it next year.

“It’s hard to see how Jeremy Corbyn could very easily turn her down if that were to be the condition that she were to put for a coalition, as indeed she surely would, so what we’re faced with is a second referendum on the EU, with all the toxic torpor and tedium and division and rancour that it would involve, and a referendum on Scotland when it was the people of Scotland at the time were told it would be a once in a generation thing.

He went on: “I really think that this country as a whole has had enough of referendums of this kind, we want to get on and deliver with the mandate of the people of 2016, we want to get Brexit done and unleash the potential of this whole country.”

The comments came hours after Johnson’s on-camera visit to a flood-hit part of England turned into a washout.

Soldiers and sandbags have been deployed to around 20 parts of South Yorkshire after severe flooding cut off communities, leaving homes and businesses under several feet of water.

Around 1000 properties in the Doncaster area have been evacuated.

Johnson stepped off the general election campaign trail to visit some of those affected yesterday.

Visiting nearby Stainforth, the Prime Minister asked what he could do to help.

But one member of the public heckled him, shouting: “You’ve took your time Boris, haven’t you?”

Another asked him: “Where’ve you been?”

And a third, pushing a wheelbarrow alongside the troops deployed to the area, refused to speak to him, telling the Tory leader: “I’m not very happy about talking to you so, if you don’t mind, I’ll just mope on with what I’m doing.

“You’ve not helped us up to pres. I don’t know what you’re here today for.”

Another local, Shelly Beniston, told the Prime Minister she had helped organise supply runs to the neighbouring village of Fishlake for the want of coordinated action by the government, stating: “We’ve had no authorities helping us.

“We didn’t know where to start. We just used common sense basically.”

Defending his performance, Johnson told the audience at his West Midlands press conference: “I think it’s very important to say that I’ve been twice now I think in a week to see what’s happening in South Yorkshire, in Derbyshire, in Nottinghamshire, and I want to pay tribute first of all to the emergency services for everything they’ve done.”