Britain’s political leaders made some final, desperate lobbying efforts on Wednesday ahead of the vote, the final day of an election campaign that is expected to end 14 years of Conservative rule and bring back a Labour government.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak insisted he was still “fighting hard” despite one of his closest ally admitting on Thursday that the Conservatives were heading for an “unprecedented defeat”.
The Conservative party was dealt a further last-minute blow when The Sun, a tabloid newspaper notorious for backing election winners, backed Keir Starmer’s Labour party.
Opinion polls are overwhelmingly predicting that Labour will win its first general election since 2005, and Starmer would become the party’s first prime minister since Gordon Brown stepped down in 2010.
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The result would see Britain move left of centre after almost 15 years of right-wing Conservative rule dominated by austerity, then Brexit and the cost-of-living crisis.
Starmer, 61, has been crisscrossing Britain to shore up Labour support and warn voters not to complacent in the final stages of the campaign.
“If you want change you have to vote,” he told reporters at an event in Carmarthenshire, south Wales, where supporters handed out cakes decorated with red ribbons, the party’s signature colour.
“I’m not taking anything for granted,” he added, flying to Scotland on the same plane that took the England team to the European Championships in Germany.
Mr Sunak, 44, has repeatedly warned that a Labour government would mean higher taxes and weakened national security, which Labour has denounced as a desperate attempt to hang on to power.
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The Conservatives also stepped up warnings to voters to thwart the possibility of Labour winning a “super majority”, which Labour fears is designed to dampen voter turnout.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, an ally of Mr Sunak, said on Wednesday that voters would “regret” handing “unlimited” powers to Labour without an effective Conservative opposition.
Bigger than Blair?
“It’s clear if you look at the polls at this stage that Labour is heading for a landslide victory probably the biggest this country has ever seen,” he told right-wing broadcaster GB News.
But former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was ousted in 2022 by colleagues including Mr Sunak, made his first major intervention in the campaign on Tuesday, urging his supporters not to treat the outcome as a “foregone conclusion”.
Labour has consistently held a 20-point lead in the polls over the past two years, but many voters are unhappy with the Conservatives’ handling of a range of issues, including public services, immigration and the economy.
Some polls predict Labour will win more seats than the record 418 it won in 1997 when Tony Blair ended 18 years of Conservative rule.
Labour needs to win at least 326 seats to secure a majority in the 650-seat Parliament.
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Voters will head to the polls from 7am (6am GMT), with results expected to start being announced from around 10.30pm on Thursday (10.30pm GMT) through to Friday morning.
The vote will be Britain’s first July general election since 1945, when Clement Attlee’s Labour Party defeated World War II leader Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party and ushered in an era of social change.
The Attlee government created a modern welfare state, including the state-run National Health Service (NHS), the most cherished institution in Britain after the monarchy.
Starmer’s “transformative” policies are less radical this time, promising prudent economic management as part of a long-term growth plan that includes nursing home battered public services.
A Labour government will face enormous challenges, from boosting sluggish growth to ending NHS strikes and improving ties with Europe after Brexit.
Some voters are looking for a break from politics after a tumultuous period that has seen five prime ministers, a string of scandals and a ferocious fight between centre-right factions in the Conservative Party that shows no signs of abating.
The Sun called the Conservative party “a divided bloc of thugs more interested in fighting among themselves than running the country”, adding that “it’s time for a change”.
Starmer, the working-class son of a toolmaker and a nurse, does not have the political charisma or popularity of Tony Blair, Labour’s former leader who last won in 2005.
But as a former human rights lawyer and chief prosecutor, he stands to benefit from a public fed up with the Conservative party and a sense of national decline.
Far-right eurosceptic Nigel Farage hopes public discontent will spark his election to Parliament at his eighth try, while the Liberal Democrats are expected to win dozens of seats.
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