The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Sunak battles till the end, Starmer eyes victory as UK goes to polls today
RISHI SUNAK has covered thousands of miles in the past few weeks, but he hasn’t outrun the expectation that his time as Britain’s prime minister is in its final hours.
United Kingdom voters will cast ballots in a national election Thursday, passing judgment on Sunak’s 20 months in office, and on the four Conservative prime ministers before him. They are widely expected to do something they have not done since 2005: Elect a Labour Party government.
During a hectic final two days of campaigning that saw him visit a food distribution warehouse, a supermarket, a farm and more, Sunak insisted “the outcome of this election is not a foregone conclusion.”
“People can see that we have turned a corner,” said the Conservative leader, who has been in office since October 2022.
But even a last-minute pep talk at a Conservative rally Tuesday night by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson did little to lift the party’s mood. Conservative Cabinet minister Mel Stride said Wednesday it looked like Labour was heading for an “extraordinary landslide.”
Labour warned against taking the election result for granted, imploring supporters not to grow complacent about polls that have given the party a solid double-digit lead.
The party has won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers including the Rupert Murdochowned Sunday Times.
But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not just to Conservatives, but to politicians in general.
Veteran rouser of the right, Nigel Farage, has leaped into that breach with his Reform U.K. party and grabbed headlines, and voters’ attention, with his anti-immigration rhetoric.
The Liberal Democrats and Green Party also want to sweep up disaffected voters from the bigger parties. Across UK, voters say they want change but aren’t optimistic it will come.
Starmer has agreed that his biggest challenge is “the mindset in some voters that everything’s broken, nothing can be fixed.”
Many election experts expect a low turnout, below the 67% recorded in 2019. Yet this election may bring a scale of change Britain has not seen for decades if it delivers a big Labour majority and a diminished Conservative Party.