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Labor voters should support Boris Johnson in the general election, former Labor MP Ian Austin has said.
The former minister resigned from the party in February, accusing leader Jeremy Corbyn of failing to tackle anti-Semitism.
Mr Austin, MP for Dudley North, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that Mr Corbyn was “completely unfit” to be PM.
Asked about his comments, Labor’s Rebecca Long Bailey said telling people to vote Conservative was “absurd”.
The shadow business secretary said Mr Austin had done “great work” as an MP but added that it wasn ‘ t “any secret” that he had differences with the Labor leader.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak called Mr Austin’s comments a “truly devastating indictment of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership”.
Speaking to the Express and Star newspaper,Mr Austin also announced he would be standing down as MP for Dudley North – a seat he held at the 2017 election with a majority of just 22.
He said: “I am so sorry that it has come to this, but as has always been the case, I have to do what I think is right.”
He added: “I must do everything I can to stop Jeremy Corbyn from getting into power.”
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason called Mr Austin’s comments “astonishing”.
“We should be clear he has had a long standing run-in with Mr Corbyn,” he said. “We know that he doesn’t like the Labor leader but still, on day two of a general campaign, for someone who has been Labor MP for much of his time in Westminster to say ‘Vote Conservative’ is incredible.”
Mr Austin became a Labor councillor in Dudley in his twenties, later working as a press officer for Gordon Brown.
He was elected MP for Dudley North in 2005 and served in Mr Brown’s government from 2008 to 2010.
Mr Austin quit the party earlier this year, blaming Mr Corbyn for “creating a culture of extremism and intolerance” and accused the Labor leadership of failing to tackle anti-Semitism in the party.
His comments came afterTom Watson announced he was stepping downas Labor’s deputy leader and as an MP.
He said the decision was “personal, not political” and that he would continue to campaign for the party.
But Mr Austin said: “If Tom thought that Jeremy Corbyn was fit to lead our country and fit to form a government, then he would have been in that cabinet. Would he really be standing down? “
He said Mr Watson was “appalled” by “the scandal of anti-Semitism that has poisoned the Labor Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership”.
On Sunday, shadow chancellor John Mc Donnell said he was “so saddened” by accusations of anti-Semitism and said he wanted to “reassure” the Jewish community that Labor was “doing everything we can to eradicate anti-Semitism in the party and to educate our own members”.
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