Labour leader Keir Starmer has dismissed as “desperate” Rishi Sunak’s last-ditch efforts to stoke fears of a landslide victory for the opposition in Britain’s general election on Thursday, as the prime minister’s campaign becomes increasingly desperate to avoid a major defeat for the Conservative Party.
With two days to go, Sunak stepped up his attacks on Labour, warning that a typical Tory voter who doesn’t vote could give Starmer an outcome that’s in line with current opinion polls which predict he will win more than 200 seats in Parliament. That would mean the new government would have a “blank cheque” to do whatever it wanted, Sunak said.
While Sunak denied having given up on victory, the Conservatives have reversed course in the past two weeks and are now warning about the size of a Labour victory — an apparent concession that the governing party is not likely to win after a series of polls using seat-by-seat analysis have projected the opposition to be on track for a historic victory. Overall, 10 out of 11 of the so-called MRP polls predict Labour will win more seats than Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.
The polls, and Labour’s stubborn 20-point lead, which barely budged during the campaign, highlight how the Conservatives’ initial message of sticking to Sunak’s plan has barely resonated with voters. The final days of the campaign appear to be an exercise in damage limitation aimed at persuading former Conservative supporters who are either considering not voting or who support Nigel Farage’s right-wing party, Reform UK, to turn out and vote Conservative on Thursday.
In a video posted to Sunak’s “X” social media account, the Conservative camp suggested a Labour government would crash the FTSE 100 index and cause power outages, but Bloomberg reported that the political and economic stability brought by the change in government has led investors to see the UK as a safe haven.
Throughout Tuesday, the Conservatives also criticised Starmer for telling Virgin Radio that he had no plans to make any appearances after 6pm on Fridays to spend time with his family. Starmer’s wife comes from a Jewish family and the Labour leader has spoken out about the importance of Friday nights.
Yet leading Conservatives criticised Starmer’s comments, with Defence Secretary Grant Shapps accusing him of wanting to be a “part-time prime minister” and minister Maria Caulfield telling broadcasters that Starmer wanted a four-day week – something the Labour leader said was not true.
“It’s really despair. My family is really important to me and they’re really important to everybody watching this,” Starmer told reporters during the campaign. “The desperation has now reached a hysterical level.”
The Conservative attack, which has been widely criticised by leaders of Britain’s Jewish community, comes despite Mr Sunak saying just two weeks ago that he praised Mr Starmer for valuing time with his family.
“He’s got a good balance between his home life and his work life, he makes it a priority and makes time for it,” Mr Sunak told LBC radio at the time.
Asked by Bloomberg whether he supported his team’s comments that Starmer would be unable to protect the country because he finishes work at 6pm, Mr Sunak replied: “I am concerned, I have deep concerns, about the security of our country under Keir Starmer.”
But the general mood is that the campaign is running out of ideas to close the gap in support with Labour.
Conservative leaflets warn of a “French-style trade union law”, a national road charging and increased spending on welfare benefits – despite Labour saying any right-to-work changes would be implemented in consultation with businesses, promising to get people off welfare benefits and putting them to work, and announcing there are no plans for a national mileage charge on roads.
Speaking to the BBC, the Prime Minister warned that a Labour victory would “put illegal immigrants back on the streets”, and said asylum seekers were “queuing up” to cross the English Channel in small boats in Calais in northern France as they waited for Starmer’s government to be installed – even though Channel crossings had reached a record high for the first half of the year by the end of June.
Labour has categorically ruled out raising income tax, National Insurance, corporation tax or VAT, refusing to put a burden on “workers”. It has also accused Mr Sunak of lying to the public about his border policy and the next chancellor’s working ethic.
“The stench of their lies and hypocrisy” is “overwhelming,” shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said on social media.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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