LONDON: Britain's Conservative Party all but conceded election defeat to Keir Starmer's Labour Party on Wednesday, a day before polling stations opened, warning the opposition party was on course for a record victory.
Opinion polls show the centre-left Labour Party is heading for a big win in Thursday's vote that would end 14 years of Conservative rule and hand Starmer the keys to the prime minister's office at 10 Downing Street on Friday morning.
You Gov's final seat projection published on Wednesday puts Labour on course to win a majority of 212 seats, the largest of any party in modern history.
Both Starmer and Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak began the final day of campaigning before polls opened by warning voters of dire economic consequences if the other man wins.
But faced with predictions of the worst result in the party's history, the Conservatives turned their attention to damage control, saying they needed to hold on to enough seats to provide effective opposition to a Labour government.
“I fully accept that the current state of the polls means that tomorrow we are likely to see a landslide Labour majority, the largest majority this country has ever seen,” said Conservative minister Mel Stride. BBC.
“What matters now is what kind of opposition we have and what kind of oversight capacity exists within Parliament.”
Asked about Stride's comments, Sunak said: Pay TV“I'm fighting hard for every vote.”
British tabloid newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch Sun On Wednesday, Labour and Starmer backed the bill, saying in an editorial published online: “It's time for a change.”
“The insurmountable problem facing them is that over 14 often chaotic years they have become a divided rabble, more interested in fighting themselves than in governing the country,” said the paper, which has backed the Conservatives in every election since 2010.
Get people out to vote
Labour's final campaign focused on its fear that voters might view the result as a foregone conclusion and stay home during Thursday's election or register protest votes in smaller parties.
Starmer said Stride's comments were an attempt to lure undecided voters away from casting their ballots after polls opened at 0600 GMT.
“I say: if they want change, they have to vote for it. I want people to be part of change. I know there are very close constituencies across the country,” she told the BBC. BBC.
“I'm not taking anything for granted, I respect the voters and I know we have to earn every vote by 10 o'clock tomorrow night and we will.”
Starmer's campaign has been built around a one-word promise: “change,” tapping into discontent over the state of Britain's limited 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 office have put the economy on an upward path after the external shocks of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, and ended years of turmoil overseen by his Conservative predecessors.
He says Starmer will have to raise taxes to implement his agenda for change and the bigger Labour's victory, the more emboldened Starmer will be to raise taxes beyond those he has already outlined.
Having failed to reduce Labour’s roughly 20-point lead in opinion polls, Sunak turned to former prime minister Boris Johnson – the man he helped oust from office in 2022 – and invited him to speak at a Conservative rally late at night on Tuesday.
Johnson, one of the most recognizable figures in British politics and the man who delivered the party to a landslide victory in 2019, made his first major public appearance of the campaign with a speech that listed many of his own achievements and gave little personal endorsement of Sunak.
“None of us can stand by as a Labour government prepares to use a landslide majority to destroy much of what we have achieved,” he said.
