Barring a major upset in the coming hours, the Keir Starmer-led Labor Party is on track to win Thursday’s general election by a record landslide, a poll suggests.
On Tuesday night, Survation polling predicted that the center-left party is “99 percent certain of winning more seats than in 1997,” when Tony Blair ended 18 years of Conservative rule.
The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will inherit a country beset by economic and social problems and a deeply divided political system.
The struggle between those competing to dominate the opposition is less predictable, with the right-wing Conservatives, in power for the last 14 years, trying to defend themselves from a far-right threat led by Nigel Farage, the telegenic populist and leading architect of Brexit. who hopes his Reform UK party will gain strength.
“The new government will face many serious challenges,” said Toby James, professor of politics and public policy at the University of East Anglia.
“If the Labor Party wins a predicted landslide, then the parallel [Tony] Blair’s victory [in] 1997 will be drawn.
“However, the situation is much more difficult than that inherited by Blair… The economy was booming in 1997, although it has seen slow growth at best recently. Prices remain high after record inflation,” James told Al Jazeera. “There is a large public debt, which will make it difficult to spend on public services when there is a lack of money.”
But as six weeks of campaigning come to an end, Labor is taking nothing for granted and is appealing to Britons to vote.
Turnout was 67.3 percent in the last elections in 2019, down from 68.8 percent in 2017. In 1997, turnout was relatively high at 71.4 percent, although lower than the previous vote – 77.7 percent in 1992 – which was won by Conservative leader John Major.
Survation expects Labor to secure 42 per cent of the vote, taking 484 out of a total of 650 seats, and that the Conservatives are “virtually certain to win a smaller share of the vote than in any previous general election”, with 23 per cent percent, he added, citing heavy losses in former conservative centers.
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in office since October 2022, called elections for May, at a time when economic data pointed to a recovery, with inflation at a lower level than in previous months.
“Labour could be heading towards a large majority, with the Conservatives becoming the main opposition. Eyes will be on how many seats the Reform Party can win, given the threat that Nigel Farage poses to the Conservative Party, but also on developments in France,” said James, referring to the far-right movement’s recent electoral successes. by Marine Le Pen.
He characterized Sunak’s tenure as “short and extremely difficult”.
“He faced significant challenges with the consequences of the pandemic, the effects of the Ukraine war on inflation and [the] challenge of keeping the Conservative Party together. Few prime ministers have faced so many significant challenges in such a short period. The goal was to steady the ship, but there are few significant political achievements to point to.”
“Politicians often use migration as a weapon to obtain votes”
In addition to the economy, party campaigns focused on immigration.
The Conservatives, who led Britain’s exit from the European Union with a promise to reduce migration, have failed to achieve that goal.
Net migration to the UK fell 10 percent to 685,000 in 2023 compared with the previous year, but remained above average historical levels. Most people traveled to work or study, with far fewer – 29,437 undocumented migrants and refugees – arriving last year via the dangerous journey across the Channel from France.
Former Conservative prime ministers such as David Cameron and Theresa May committed to reducing net migration by the tens of thousands.
“Politicians often use migration as a weapon to gain votes before an election and we often see a race to the bottom between parties over who will impose the toughest policies on asylum seekers,” warned Emilie McDonnell, lead Human Rights Watch’s UK advocacy and communications team.
“The next UK government needs to reset the narrative on migration and resist the dehumanizing and fear-mongering rhetoric that is inevitable after the election,” she told Al Jazeera.
Labor has promised to end the controversial Rwanda scheme cultivated by the Conservatives, which aims to deport refugees and undocumented migrants to process asylum claims in the African country.
To date, no such flight has taken off due to legal opposition and humanitarian concerns.
“Abandoning the Rwanda scheme and resuming asylum processing for people arriving irregularly are essential to restoring refugee protection in the UK,” said McDonnell. “However, much more is needed to create a fair and humane asylum system and to show that the UK will do its fair share to protect refugees around the world, notably by greatly expanding safe pathways by repealing the Migration Act Illegal banning seeking asylum, and introducing a strict time limit on detention.”
Observers are also keeping an eye on British towns and cities that are home to large Muslim communities, where the Labor Party is expected to provide some support, given its stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.
Starmer, like Sunak, supports Israel and regularly speaks of its “right to defense”, despite almost 38,000 Palestinians having been killed.
Pro-Palestine protesters are planning another large march on Saturday in London.
According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (CPS) and its partners, the police did not offer the march organizers any starting or finishing point in central London for the demonstration “unlike on all other occasions”.
PSC leader Ben Jamal said: “Keir Starmer is facing his first test of his government’s willingness to support the right to peaceful protest, including for the protest to take place near Westminster. The Metropolitan Police are threatening to use repressive powers under harmful legislation passed by the Tory government to stop a protest near Parliament… Will [the incoming government] vigorously defend the democratic right to protest?”
Shaista Aziz, who stood down as a Labor councilor in Oxford in October after six years because of Starmer’s stance on the war in Gaza, said she feels “disconnected” from the general election.
“There is no enthusiasm at the prospect of going to polling stations this week – even though we all want a disastrous Conservative government removed from office after 14 years of accumulated devastation in the country,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Labour will have to demonstrate strong principled leadership in Gaza that upholds international law, international human rights and humanitarian law, and that does not create a false equivalence between the occupied and the occupier. So far, it has been demonstrated that it is incapable of doing any of this.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
