https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50413638

This outside inference didn't pick up much traction as in the case of Trumps


Outgoing European Council President Donald Tusk has urged British voters not to "give up" on stopping Brexit.

As campaigning ramps up ahead of next month's general election, he warned that leaving the EU would leave the UK a "second-rate player".

In a speech, he also said Brexit would likely mark the "real end of the British Empire".

He is due to step down from his role next month, having held the post for five years.

Mr Tusk's intervention comes as Conservative leader Boris Johnson said the UK Parliament was "paralysed" and had refused "time and again to honour the mandate of the people and to deliver Brexit".

Former head of the UK diplomatic service Sir Simon Fraser said he believed Mr Tusk was a friend of the UK but argued making the comments was "not the right thing to do".

"I think the principle that politicians don't comment on the electoral affairs of other countries is a wise principle," he added.