UK election: Prime minister tries to downsize Conservative defeat by throwing in the towel | Sandra Cohen's blog

The British prime minister appealed to the electorate to prevent a Labor majority in this Thursday's election (4) in a sign that he is on the mend and has already dealt with defeat. For conservatives led by Rishi SunakAll that remains is to gauge the scale of the calamity in this reckoning with a party languishing after 14 years in power.

With a 20-point lead over the Conservatives in the polls, Keir Starmer's Labor Party is expected to win. Get a majority equal to that achieved by Tony Blair's New Labor Party in 1997, 418 of the 650 seats in Parliament.

So Sunak's appeal sounded fanciful: “Just 130,000 people who changed their voting direction and supported us could prevent Starmer from achieving that absolute majority,” the prime minister calculated. Ahead of the election, one of his most loyal ministers – Labour's Mel Straight – predicted a massive Labor victory “bigger than 1997”.

From the conservative camp, other voices echoed the campaign's failure. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in an article for the Telegraph that victory should no longer be the goal of the so-called Tories: “Thursday's vote is now about building a strong enough opposition. You must read what is written: it is finished. We must prepare ourselves for the reality and frustration of being in opposition.

Cautiously, the Labor candidate, who was later to be crowned as the new British Prime Minister, scorned these apocalyptic revelations from the opposition camp. He attributed them to a ploy to confuse voters, giving the impression that the game was decided before polling began. “It's still the same, really voter suppression. It's trying to get people to stay at home instead of going out and voting,” Starmer warned.

But given the stability of polls in recent weeks, A change of air is taken for granted with labor success. Newspapers like “Financial Times”, “The Guardian”, “Independent” and Rupert Murdoch's tabloid “The Sun”, which has always supported the conservatives, also supported Labour.

In its editorial, the “FT” opines that the United Kingdom must elect a polarizing conservative party, which has limited its appeal to an increasingly narrow segment of the population, and a Labor Party that wants to govern the entire country. “The risks of staying with exhausted incumbents are greater than bringing in a new government. Much of the country yearns for a fresh start. Labor must have the opportunity to deliver that.

The Conservative Party's five tumultuous governments since 2010 have reflected voter fatigue, a dramatic exit from the European Union in 14 years, spending cuts to public services and social assistance, the coronavirus pandemic and a series of scandals involving its leaders.

A Discontent in the country It revolves around weak economic growth, the high cost of living, concerns about the public health system and distrust of conservative governments to address the migration crisis.

This Conservative erosion coincided with Labour's approach to the centre. After a dramatic election defeat in 2019, moderate Keir Starmer was elected leader, replacing Jeremy Corbyn, the party's left-wing representative. He took the leadership and directed it towards the center, promoting the purity of the intensive sectors.

“This purge turned the Labor Party into a mirror image of the Conservatives: subservient to big business, austerity at home and militarism abroad,” observed British journalist Oliver Eagleton, author of “The Starmer Project.” “The New York Times”.

With these arguments, the new Labor leader attracted moderates and disaffected conservatives, while the isolated Sunak lost the most radical to the far right from populist Nigel Farage.