Rishi Sunak’s final appeal before UK elections

London:

Stop Labor’s “absolute majority” is the final message that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is trying to drive home on Wednesday, the final day of campaigning before election day on Thursday, as the majority of Incumbent conservatives appear to have practically conceded defeat in the general election.

“This is what unites us. We need to stop the Labor Party’s absolute majority raising your taxes. The only way to do that is to vote Conservative tomorrow,” Rishi Sunak, 44, said on social media as he focused on garnering support in the final hours of the campaign.

With his party far behind the Labor Party led by Keir Starmer, the British Indian leader and his team’s strategy appears to be to win over their traditional voters to ensure a strong enough turnout at Thursday’s polls and close the gap. of his widely expected defeat. following conservative victories in the last three elections.

“I fully accept that the position of the polls at the moment means that tomorrow we are likely to see Labour’s biggest landslide majority – the biggest majority this country has ever seen. Much bigger than 1997,” Rishi Sunak’s Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride told the BBC.

“I have accepted that where the ballot boxes are at the moment… that tomorrow we will, therefore, most likely be in a situation where [Labour has] the largest majority any party has ever achieved,” he said, effectively conceding his party’s defeat.

It is being seen as a fear tactic to incite Tory voters into action, with the hope of keeping Labor’s majority below that achieved by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the Labor Party in 1997 with 179 seats.

“Thursday’s vote is now aimed at forming a strong enough opposition. You need to read the writing on the wall: it’s over and we need to prepare ourselves for reality and the opposition’s frustration,” Suella Braverman, sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak, told ‘The Telegraph’.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson – who is not exactly a close ally of Rishi Sunak since the scandal of parties breaking the law during the COVID pandemic – was also introduced by the party at a campaign event in London to warn against a “sledgehammer majority” being handed to the Labor Party led by Keir Starmer.

“When Rishi asked me to help, of course I couldn’t say no. We are all here because we love our country,” Boris Johnson told a Conservative crowd.

“They can achieve nothing in this election except usher in the most left-wing Labor government since the war, with a huge majority, and we must not allow that to happen,” he warned.

The Labor Party, however, is keen to ignore this message of victory as a foregone conclusion, the day before the election, to fight any complacency within the ranks and among its own voter base.

“People say polls predict the future – they don’t predict the future, every vote counts, every vote has to be won… It’s not ‘job done’,” said Keir Starmer.

Poll experts predict a low turnout, which stood at 67 percent in the last general election in December 2019, when Boris Johnson won a solid majority with his “get Brexit done” message.

On Thursday, polling stations will open across the country at 7am local time and close at 10pm local time, as voters elect their MPs for the UK Parliament’s 650 constituencies – 326 needed to achieve a majority and avoid a hung Parliament.

All eyes will then be on voting on election night at 10pm, giving a clear idea of ​​what can be expected nationally as counting begins and focuses on the whole of the UK. If opinion polls are to be believed, the incumbent Conservatives are in line to win between 53 and 150 seats, with Labor expected to win a landslide victory.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)