With Britain’s ruling Conservatives facing a historic election defeat on Thursday, former prime minister Boris Johnson made his first appearance of the campaign to warn against the centre-left Labour Party taking power.
Mr Johnson, on bad terms with current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, had so far stayed away from the campaign and his appearance late on Tuesday at a small Conservative campaign rally in London came as a surprise. He spoke before Mr Sunak.
“If you really want higher taxes […] “If you want uncontrolled immigration and if you want unnecessary kowtowing to Brussels, vote Labour on Thursday,” Johnson threatened. “If you want to protect our democracy and our economy and keep this country strong abroad […] “So you know what to do,” he added. “Vote Conservative on Thursday.”
But the game is over.
After six weeks of campaigning and 14 years of Conservative power during which five prime ministers succeeded one another, four of whom had to resign, the country is expected to swing to the centre-left on Thursday, with Keir Starmer as head of government.
Conservative heavyweights, led by Rishi Sunak, have been reduced to imploring voters not to give Labour a “super majority” in the House of Commons.
“We are probably on the eve of the biggest tidal wave [travailliste] “We have never had the greatest economic crisis in this country,” Labour Secretary Mel Stride, a pillar of Rishi Sunak’s campaign, admitted on Times Radio on Wednesday.
“It’s over, and we must prepare ourselves for the reality and the frustration of the opposition,” former Interior Minister Suella Braverman wrote in the Telegraph.
After difficult years in which the British have gone through Brexit, economic and social crisis, COVID, scandals and political instability, voters only want one thing: change.
And they are prepared to give a chance to Keir Starmer, a dour and little-known 61-year-old Labour man, a former human rights lawyer and then attorney general who was elected as an MP only nine years ago.
He is expected to become prime minister, a position that goes to the leader of the political party that wins the majority of seats in the legislative elections.
Keir Starmer, who has sought to project an image of seriousness and firmness, particularly fiscal and economic, after having refocused his party without qualms, has already warned that he does not have a “magic wand”.
But this man of modest origins, son of a toolmaker and a nurse, speaks of integrity, of the sense of service in politics.
“Country first, party second,” he repeats regularly.
Farage in ambush
Among the main concerns of voters are the economy, the deterioration of public health services and immigration.
The nationalist party Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage, who is trying for the eighth time to be elected to the House of Commons, have made this last subject their main hobby horse, linking to it all the ills from which the United Kingdom suffers such as the lack of housing, the difficulty of obtaining health care in the public sector and the absence of work for some young people.
A true tribune, he entered the race last month, immediately boosting voting intentions for his party, which is now hot on the heels of the conservatives and has even overtaken them in some polls.
Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister for 20 months, has made every effort to avoid the disaster predicted for his party. He has announced tax cuts, promised better days… and tried until the end to win back voters hesitating between Reform UK and the Conservative Party in constituencies where the vote will be close.
Reform UK is fielding over 600 candidates this year – there are 650 constituencies in total – and even though the single-round voting system favours the two major parties, Nigel Farage has made no secret of his intentions: he wants to oust the Tories who are worn down by internal divisions and make his party the major opposition party, with the aim of winning the 2029 general election.