Prime Minister Rishi Sunak argues that only his Conservative Party can effectively oppose a Labour government. He aims to prevent seats from being lost for his conservatives as right-wing voters switch to the party of popular nationalist Nigel Farage.
Sunak wants to warn his audience that Farage’s Reform UK party is likely to win only a few seats. “Looking ahead, hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs will be countered by just one, two, three, four, or five MPs,” Reuters quotes from the text.
With this plea, Sunak effectively admits that his party is heading for defeat after fourteen years in power. In polls, the centre-left Labour is more than 20 percentage points ahead of the conservatives, who are also being chased by Farage and his far-right party. Sunak’s Tories are at around 20%, with Reform at 16%.
This does not mean that the parties will also have that percentage of parliamentary seats in the British electoral system. Each constituency provides a parliamentarian, and that seat goes to the candidate who receives the most votes there. This means that the left-wing Labour will benefit from it next Thursday if right-wing voters are divided between multiple parties.
With his speech, the prime minister wants to address frustrated right-wing voters who no longer want to vote for his party.
“A Labour government would be bad for our country,” the text says. “An uncontrollable Labour government is a disaster. We would need decades to recover from that.”
