Rishi Sunak takes defeat for granted and calls for Labour Party “supermajority” to be avoided | International

The sense of historic debacle is spreading among British Conservatives has caused the accusations and recriminations to begin even in the presence of the citizens to the polls next Thursday. Of course, always under the protection of anonymity, but there are already several delegates who define the past six weeks as “the worst campaign” of their lives, as one of them admitted to the newspaper Guardianand they accuse the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, of not listening to his advisers.

Isaac Levido, the Australian election guru who accompanied him Boris Johnson during his 2019 election victorytried to convince Sunak’s team to avoid two mistakes. The first, calling an early election in July – could have waited until almost the end of the year – when the good economic data, such as improving inflation or GDP, were just starting to come in. The second, forget about those voters who left the Labour Party one day and voted for the Party Tories for Brexit. Disappointed, most have now returned home. Levido suggested that the prime minister's campaign would focus on attacks to its real threat: populist Nigel Farage's Reform UK.

Only at the end of a disastrous few weeks did the Conservatives decide to put their fear of offending those voters behind them and start to attack Farage hard for his racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Too late in any case. The poll average gives Reform UK 16%, which could lead to serious erosion of seats ToriesThat same average maintained a 20 percentage point lead for Labour over the Conservatives through the end of the campaign, with the latter receiving between 19% and 20% support.

'Mr. Sleepy' and the 'supermajority'

The desperation of Sunak, who could go down in history as the candidate who engineered the electoral collapse of the Conservative Party, has led to remarkable contradictions every time he has changed his strategy. Just a week ago, when a BBC journalist asked him if he saw any virtue in on his rival, Keir Starmer, He praised his desire for family reconciliation. The Labour candidate has always prided himself on leaving work at 6pm every Friday to spend time with his family. He and his wife have two children, aged 16 and 13.

The slogan repeated by the Conservatives – including Sunak himself – in recent hours is to call Starmer Mr. Sleepy (Mr. Sleepy) and accuses him of being willing to keep a reasonable work schedule. To the point that they link their habits to national security. “Defending the UK is a job that takes slightly longer than a day’s work,” wrote the still British Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, on X (formerly Twitter).

“It’s a ridiculous thing and it makes you laugh. It just shows that the Conservatives have nothing positive to add to this campaign,” Starmer responded to the Times Radio presenter, who ironically congratulated himself on being able to interview him before he went to bed at 6pm.

But the real sign that Sunak is merely looking for ways to soften the blow is found in the plea he has made incessantly to voters these days to avoid a Labour “supermajority” that would result in an unchecked government and a weakened opposition. The sociologist John Curtice, one of Britain’s most vocal voices in electoral analysis, has been forceful: “The chances of lightning striking twice in the same place are greater than Sunak winning this election.” He exasperated. The Conservative candidate is now simply looking for the electoral engineering needed to avoid collapse.

“If just 130,000 people change their vote and support us, we can stop Starmer getting that supermajority. Think about it. “You have the power to prevent a Labour government that would be completely unchecked,” the prime minister claimed in Oxfordshire on Tuesday, at one of the election events he has focused on in the final stretch of his campaign before Thursday. Sunak was speaking directly to voters considering shifting their support to Starmer – the most moderate Conservative electorate – or to those who have been seduced by the Farage's populist siren song. In many of the 650 constituencies, the seat will depend on a difference of just hundreds of votes.

The Labour candidate must fight his own two ghosts in the final days of the campaign. He must convince those who take the victory of the left for granted that “if they want change, they must vote for change”, and that they cannot therefore stay at home. And above all, the country must try to reduce the fear inoculated by the Conservative campaign of a possible government with great power and an overwhelming majority in parliament.

“The bigger the majority, the better it will be for the country,” Starmer explained to the newspaper. The timeswas featured in a generous cover interview suggesting that Britain's leading newspaper, as has already happened with the Financial Timesthen welcomes a cycle change in the UK 14 years of conservative governments. “With that majority we will be able to roll up our sleeves and work on the change we need,” the Labour candidate assured, aware that his victory is more a reflection of citizens' fatigue with the Tories then a sign of hope with the new political cycle approaching.

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