Economic warnings dominate as UK election campaign enters final day

3 months ago 22

Britain’s Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak on Wednesday (3 July) kicked off the last day of campaigning before polls open in a national election, each warning voters of dire economic consequences if the other man wins.

Opinion polls show Starmer’s Labour Party is set for a big win that would end 14 years of Conservative government and hand the centre-left leader the keys to the prime minister’s Number 10 Downing Street office on Friday morning.

Fearful that voters could see the result as a foregone conclusion and stay at home when polling opens at 0600 GMT on Thursday or register protest votes with smaller parties, Labour issued a fresh rallying cry:

“Don’t forget the economic chaos for which the British people are still paying the price,” Labour’s campaign coordinator Pat McFadden said in a statement.

“If you vote Conservative, nothing will change. If you don’t vote at all or vote for another party, you run the risk of waking up on Friday to Rishi Sunak walking through the door to No. 10 once again.”

Starmer’s campaign has been built around a one-word promise of ‘Change’, tapping into discontent at the state of Britain’s stretched public services and falling living standards – symptoms of a sluggish economy and political instability.

Sunak has sought to persuade voters that his 20 months in charge have set the economy on an upward path after the external shocks of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, and drawn a line under years of turmoil overseen by his Conservative predecessors.

He argues that Starmer would have to put up taxes to implement his agenda for change

Having failed to close Labour’s roughly 20-point opinion poll lead the Conservatives have pivoted from seeking victory to trying to minimise the scale of defeat.

Their final hours campaign warned that the bigger Labour’s win, the more emboldened Starmer would be to raise taxes beyond those he has already outlined.

“The larger the scale of the supermajority, the easier it will be to ram through extreme policies – and the more tax rises will be inflicted on the British people,” the Conservatives said in a statement.

Surprise last-ditch support

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise appearance in the British election campaign on Tuesday, issuing a last-ditch bid to rally support for the Conservatives and Sunak, the man who helped turf him out of office.

Johnson won a big majority at the last election in 2019 before being forced to resign in 2022 by a Conservative mutiny which Sunak helped to start, and which exposed deep splits in the governing party, not least between Sunak and Johnson.

Greeted by chants of “Boris! Boris!” from party supporters two days before an election which the Conservatives are predicted to lose heavily, he introduced the current prime minister at a campaign event in London.

In a speech listing many of his own achievements, Johnson gave little personal endorsement to Sunak but focused on what he said were the dangers of the opposition Labour Party winning power.

“None of us can sit back as a Labour government prepares to use a sledgehammer majority to destroy so much of what we have achieved,” he said.

Acknowledging that some might be surprised to see him, he said he was glad to be asked to help by Sunak. “Of course I couldn’t say no,” he added.

“Whatever our differences they are utterly trivial by comparison with the disaster we may face if these so-called opinion polls are right,” Johnson said.

Johnson, one of British politics’ most recognisable figures and a proven election winner, has spent almost the entire campaign on the sidelines, having quit frontline politics in 2023. He has endorsed individual candidates in video messages but has not previously appeared at big campaign events.

Sunak, who appeared after – but not alongside – Johnson on the stage, thanked his predecessor.

“Isn’t it great to have our Conservative family united, my friends?” he said.