The United Kingdom is preparing for a hot summer like few others, at least in the country’s political history. The day after the announcement that surprised the country, political commentators continue to question the reasons why Rishi Sunak called general elections on 4 July (six months before the end of the parliamentary term) in a […]
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The United Kingdom is preparing for a hot summer like few others, at least in the political history of the country. A day after the announcement that surprised the country, political commentators continue to question the reasons why Rishi Sunak has called the political elections on 4th July (six months before the end of the parliamentary term) at a time when he is more than 20 points behind the Labor leader in terms of popularity Keir Starmerand the Tories, adrift between faltering promises, scandals and defections (after the defeat of the local elections at the beginning of the month) now seem to be at the point of no return.
“It’s chaos, 14 years of waiting are over, now it’s time to turn the page and rebuild the country,” said Starmer, relaunching from Gillingham, Conservative stronghold in Kent, his campaign to change the country. A complicated and strategic battleground for the elections that unfolds on the English coasts. This is where the frustrations of the Tories lie, betrayed by Sunak’s promise “let’s stop the boats” and “send the illegal immigrants to Rwanda“.
And if yesterday the British Prime Minister clung precisely to the data on the decline in immigration (-10% admissions compared to last year), this morning the declarations at the start of the election campaign betrayed the real reasons for Sunak’s sudden call to vote. Behind his move could be hidden the rush to stem the effect of the accumulated failures in the management of migratory flows before they become political boulders with the arrival of the summer and theincrease in migrants in the Channel Strait scheduled for the summer.
After months of legal and political battle to have Parliament sanction by law that Rwanda is a Safe countrythe program of rejections in fact it is not yet ready. The prime minister had promised that the first flights for Kigali they would have left in the summer but today he was forced to admit that no plane will leave Heathrow before the election. And not even afterwards, if a Downing Street He will be succeeded by Starmer who intends to scrap the entire project.
The desperate prime minister is thus slipping right on the cornerstone of his programme, now trying to exploit it as an electoral weapon: “The flights will leave if I am re-elected on 4 July”, said Sunak, who will play the electoral challenge precisely on this contrast with Starmer , pumping on the sense of insecurity of the British towards illegal immigration and the global geopolitical context.
The Rwanda plan, announced two years ago by Boris Johnson and stranded in the courts of justice (as well as in expensive and unlikely logistics) in the meantime he has literally thrown away £240 million at one of the worst times for the British economy. Which sets fire to the hearts not only of the large portion of the population afflicted by inflation and high prices of living, but of the conservative voters themselves and their most feared right-wing adversaries such as the Party of Reform UK.
“Sunak announced the election because he is absolutely terrified of the takeover of Reform UK in the polls (they are in third place with 11% of preferences behind the Conservatives’ 23% and Labor in the lead with 45%, ed.),” he declared Richard Ticeleader of the party supported by the former Brexit captain Nigel Faragewho dissolved his reservations by making it known however that he will not stand in the British elections to focus on Trump’s race for the White House.
