Preventing a Labour “supermajority” is the ultimate message British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is trying to drive home on Wednesday, the final day of campaigning before Thursday’s vote, as most incumbent Conservatives have conceded defeat in the general election.
“This is what unites us. We have to stop a Labour majority that will raise taxes on you. The only way to do that is to vote Conservative tomorrow,” Rishi Sunak, 44, said on social media as he focused on rallying support in the final few hours of the election campaign.
With his party lagging far behind the Keir Starmer-led Labour Party, the strategy of the British Indian leader and his team appears to be to appeal to his traditional voters to ensure a good turnout in Thursday’s election and reduce the margin of defeat that was widely expected after the Tory victories in the last three elections.
Mel Stride, Rishi Sunak’s work and pensions secretary, told the BBC: “I completely accept that wherever the polling is taking place at the moment it means that Labour is likely to get the biggest majority tomorrow – the biggest majority this country has ever seen. Bigger than in 1997.”
He conceded his party’s defeat, saying “I accept that the state of the polling at the moment is such that tomorrow in all likelihood we will be in a position where the Labour Party will have its biggest majority ever.”
This is being seen as a strategy to scare Tory voters, in order to maintain the Labour majority at the level which the Labour Party led by former Prime Minister Tony Blair achieved in 1997 of 179 seats.
Suella Braverman, who was sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak, told The Telegraph: “Thursday’s vote is now about building a strong opposition. We need to read the writing on the wall: it is over, and we need to be prepared for the reality and frustration of the opposition.”
Meanwhile, former prime minister Boris Johnson – who has not been a close ally of Rishi Sunak since the Partygate scandal of parties breaking Covid pandemic laws – also warned at a campaign event in London against the party handing a “huge majority” to the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer.
Boris Johnson told the cheering Tory crowd: “When Rishi asked me to come and help, of course I couldn’t say no. We’re all here because we love our country.”
“They can achieve nothing in this election other than putting together the most left-wing Labour government with a landslide majority since the war, and we must not let that happen,” he warned.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party is keen to reject this message of victory as a foregone conclusion the day before polling, in order to fight against any complacency both within the party and among its voter base.
“People are saying surveys predict the future – they don’t predict the future, every single vote counts, every single vote has to be earned … it’s not ‘job done’,” Keir Starmer said.
Poll experts have predicted a low turnout, compared with 67 per cent at the last general election in December 2019, when Boris Johnson won a solid majority on his “Get Brexit done” message.
On Thursday, polling stations across the country will open at 7am local time and close at 10pm local time, as voters elect their MPs for the UK Parliament’s 650 constituencies – 326 votes are needed for a majority and to avoid instability in Parliament.
All eyes will then be on the election night exit polls at 10pm, which give a fair idea of what to expect nationally as vote counting begins, and how it is centred across the UK. If opinion polls are to be believed, the incumbent Tories are set to win between 53 and 150 seats, while Labour is projected to win a landslide victory.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)