UK’s Sunak says only his Conservatives can form strong opposition to Labour

Reuters:

LONDON, July 1 – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will on Monday say only his Conservatives can counter a Labour-led government and that a vote for Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK would hamper any chance of his party forming a strong opposition.

Appearing to all but concede defeat before Thursday’s election, Sunak will appeal to those voters on the political right who are considering voting for Farage’s party in protest at his Conservative government.

The Conservatives look set to be kicked out of office after 14 turbulent years, marked by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016 and the cost of living crisis that followed the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Opinion polls have consistently given Keir Starmer‘s centre-left Labour Party an around 20 point lead, with support for Reform potentially splitting the centre right-vote and the centrist Liberal Democrats further draining Conservative support.

Sunak will say at a rally that Reform “just won’t win enough seats to oppose Labour”, saying the party had previously said it would be good to get a handful of members of parliament elected.

“Just imagine that: Hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs opposed by just ‘one, two, three, four, five elected MPs’,” Sunak will say, according to extracts of his speech.

“A Labour government would be bad for our country, and an unchecked Labour government would be a disaster from which it would take decades to recover.”