A final rush that is all in all dull, destined to change little or nothing. Thus begins the week in which about 50 million British voters will be called to renew the House of Commons on July 4 and to form a new government: a challenge without suspense – unlike what is happening in France across the Channel and unless there is an apocalyptic failure of all the polling institutes – with the Conservatives headed towards an announced defeat, after the kamikaze gamble of the Prime Minister’s early vote Rishi Sunak; and the moderate Sir Labour Party Keir Starmer destined to be returned to power after 14 years by a large default victory.
Among the latest findings, before the polls can no longer be updated, Opinum confirms Labour around 40% and Tories at 20; while the Savanta institute has Starmer’s party drop to 38% (less than the radical Jeremy Corbyn achieved in 2017), but still with a minimum 17 point advantage over Sunak’s party, and therefore able to sweep the seats (thanks to the traditional single-member majority system of ‘first past the post’).
A picture that reassures the front-runner Sir Keir, a former lawyer, former Crown Prosecutor in London and certainly not a captivating leader of a party that is cautious to the point of vagueness about its programs. As witnessed by the feelings of cities with a working-class and socialist tradition such as Liverpool, the most Labour-oriented in the Kingdom since forever, where ANSA today struggles to intercept even a single enthusiastic admirer of Starmer on the streets: labeled by some more conciliatory passers-by as “the lesser evil”, by others – sic et simpliciter – as “a Tory in a red tie”.
The only realistic card to play, in any case, for a change, even if it is after almost three decades of conservative governments and various turmoils between Brexit, crisis, instability, scandals. Change soft enough to be fine even for the establishment, as confirmed by the chain endorsements of traditionally liberal-moderate media such as the Economist, Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times or, lastly, the Financial Times, voice of the City and business: according to an alignment of preferences and interests that has not been seen since the days of Tony Blair’s New Labour.
For 44-year-old Sunak, the first non-white Indian Prime Minister in the history of the UK, a devastating perfect storm is looming. which risks overwhelming, in addition to the Tories and perhaps their historical role, even his individual seat as an MP: an unprecedented nightmare for a prime minister in office. To save what can be saved, Rishi has tried to insist on two hobbyhorses, the fight against illegal immigration and fiscal policy, accusing his rival in particular of hiding an alleged intention to “raise taxes” like rain once in Downing Street. But the truth is that he considers himself defeated, implicitly, clinging in these hours to an almost desperate appeal to voters “not to surrender” to Starmer hand and foot: as if now hoping only for a not too large Labour majority.
A minimum objective towards which a helping hand could come if nothing else from the slowdown in the right-wing rush of the populists of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, who stopped at around 16% in the wake of the storm linked to the racist statements of some candidates.
The Labour leader, for his part, limits himself to hammering on the offer of an unspecified alternative to the Tory “chaos” of recent years, evoking sufficiently generic slogans on stability, growth, national security or the reconstruction of “trust in public affairs” after waves of scandals such as the Partygate of the Boris Johnson era or the embarrassing case of betting on the date of the election. While, pressed on the seismic results of the first round in France, he states that the “progressives” are the only barrier to the “populist threat”, on the island as in continental Europe. Except to hasten to add that, to win, it is necessary to give – from the economy to the hard line on the landings of illegal immigrants – “answers to the everyday concerns of ordinary people”. Moods and bad moods included.
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