Rishi rallies against “Labour supermajority”
Rishi Sunak fired off several grave warnings today that voters only “have 48 hours to stop a Starmer supermajority”, a danger which threatens to “make every single person in this country poorer”.
Alongside his ominous tweets on X, Sunak also posted an extraordinary campaign video in which a Labour landslide forces the average Brit to endure power cuts, online schooling, and forgoe holidays due to record-breaking inflation and taxes.
Five weeks after calling the surprise election, Sunak appears to have relinquished any hope of a Conservative victory and heeded Iain Martin’s advice to reposition the campaign as one against a Labour supermajority. Rishi’s time to face the music– which echoes ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ – has come as he embarks on a last minute bid to sway those on the right and centre who fear the prospect of Labour hegemony.
According to polling, Labour’s commanding lead has dropped off slightlly. Yet it appears many disaffected voters have swung their support towards the Reform party which has seen support rise steadily over the last month to 17 per cent as the Tories linger near 20 per cent.
Reform is poised to win as few as 2 seats, with votes for the party indicating primarily a protest, rather than a serious electoral challenge. Over 130 seats remain within just a few points for the Conservatives. Therefore, if Sunak can sway several thousand voters away from Reform, he may just about be able to save the UK from what he describes as an “unchecked and unaccountable” Labour government.
Reform has been mired in controversy since its inception and today was no exception. Another candidate, Georgie David of West Ham and Beckton, has decided to stand down from her bid based on the “vast majority of her fellow candidates being racist, misogynistic and bigoted”.
Her decision follows Liam Booth-Isherwood’s withdrawal on Sunday, after the Reform candidate for Erewash found “significant moral issue” with the party over its handling of racism and sexism. Both have decided to back the Conservatives going forward.
The two defections follow on from the calamities of last week in which three Reform candidates had party support withdrawn following accusations of racism on social media. One particularly abhorrent comment compared to black people to “savages”, another called the small boat migrants “scum”. These comments, along with those of Reform-aligned canvassers, have drawn ire from across the political spectrum and were deplored by both Starmer and Sunak.
As the moral hazard of Farage’s party grows apparent and the fear of a huge Labour victory looms large, Sunak’s pleas to prevent a supermajority might just be successful in driving voters on the right to return at the eleventh hour. Yet such a late, fear-based campaign also exposes the colossal failure of the Tory campaign which has been unable to sway the public on the merits of its policies alone.