After months of suspense, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Wednesday that legislative elections would be held on July 4, with Labor starting as strong favorites to dislodge the Conservatives, in power for 14 years.
It was in the rain and his voice sometimes drowned out by music coming from neighboring streets that the head of government, on the steps of 10 Downing Street, announced his surprise decision to ask Charles III to dissolve Parliament . “The king has granted this request and legislative elections will be held on July 4,” he said. Rishi Sunak has so far limited himself to talking about elections “in the second half of the year” when the vote could theoretically be held until January 2025.
But faced with disastrous polls for the Tories, pressure was growing to clarify his intentions. A series of good news on the economic level – return of growth and curbing of inflation – ended up convincing him to take the plunge. “Over the coming weeks, I will fight for every vote,” insisted Rishi Sunak. “I will earn your trust and prove to you that only a Conservative government led by me will not jeopardize our hard-won economic stability and will be able to restore pride and confidence in our country,” he added, accusing Labor to have “no plans”.
“The time for change has come!”
After 14 years of conservative power marked by the Brexit referendum and five successive Conservative Prime Ministers, the British seem determined to turn the page and send Labor Keir Starmer, a 61-year-old former lawyer to 10 Downing Street. “The time for change has come!” Keir Starmer said in a speech after the election announcement, presenting the Labor vote as a vote “for stability, economic and political”. “We can end the chaos, we can turn the page, we can start to rebuild the United Kingdom and change our country,” he insisted.
The polls give Labour, positioned on the centre-left, around 45% of voting intentions, far ahead of the Conservatives, relegated to between 20% and 25%, and the anti-immigration and anti-climate policy party Reform UK (12% ). With a simple first-past-the-post voting system in the UK’s 650 constituencies, such results would translate into a large majority for Labour.
For the Tories, whom Boris Johnson led to a historic victory in 2019, the predictions are cataclysmic. More than 60 Conservative MPs out of 344 have already given up on running, including party heavyweights. Even in Scotland, the separatists, all-powerful in recent years, are now left behind in the polls by Labor.
A mandate that turned into a cross for Rishi Sunak
Chosen by his party’s MPs in October 2022, Rishi Sunak was supposed to embody with his past as an investment banker and hard-working Finance Minister the return of seriousness after the scandals of the Boris Johnson era and the quasi-financial crisis caused by Liz Truss’s 49 days in power.
But his mandate has turned into a cross, the British seeming exhausted by the drop in purchasing power over the last two years, the decline of public services – especially the health system, which is running out of steam -, the rise in unemployment rates. interest or even the housing crisis. Not to mention the heartbreaks in the majority, where internal struggles are openly displayed. Rishi Sunak has shown himself incapable of redressing the situation despite his repeated attempts to revive himself, to display his authority or to seduce his base with projects such as that aimed at sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
For his part, Keir Starmer, elected head of his party in 2020 following the very left-wing Jeremy Corbyn, has methodically refocused Labor. He worked to build an image of a competent and serious leader, prudent on the economic and financial level, and firm on security and migration issues. This strategy seems to have paid off: according to a YouGov poll, Keir Starmer, with 51% unfavorable opinions, is the least unpopular politician in the United Kingdom, compared to 71% for Rishi Sunak.
Labor is considered by respondents to be better placed than the Tories to manage all subjects except defence, including taxation, immigration and security which are traditionally the Conservatives’ favorite areas.