UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ’genuinely fearful’ of final election humiliation
The UK is set to end 14 years of Conservative rule as the polls open for their general election – but for PM Rishi Sunak there could be one final indignity.
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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunk is said to be “rattled” and “genuinely fearful” that this week’s general election could be so disastrous it will not only see his Conservative Party ousted from power after 14 years – but that he could lose his seat, too.
The most catastrophic estimates predict that the Tories, as the party is commonly known, could go from more than 350 MPs now to a mere 64, its worst result ever.
Conversely, the opposition Labour Party is forecast by some polls to have its best result, with more than 450 seats out of the nation’s 650.
Even in Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 election, Labour won less than this at 418.
It is also unheard of for a UK party leader to be booted out of their own electorate.
But if Mr Sunak achieves this ignominious feat, he will join Australia’s John Howard who lost his Sydney seat of Bennelong in 2007 when Labor, under Kevin Rudd, routed the Coalition.
Mr Sunak is the MP for Richmond and Northallerton, a largely rural constituency - which is the UK’s term for an electorate - in Yorkshire in England’s north.
It is one of the safest Conservative seats in the nation.
At the 2019 election, a landslide for the Conservatives under former leader Boris Johnson, Mr Sunak held the seat with 64 per cent of the vote and a majority of 27,000.
But it’s almost certain his vote will plummet.
Sunak ‘genuinely fearful’
“He is genuinely fearful of a defeat in Richmond: the risk that it could be tight has hit him hard,” a source told newspaper The Guardian.
“He’s rattled – he can’t quite believe it’s coming so close.”
If he is vanquished there will be an extra humiliation for Mr Sunak.
In Britain, results for each electorate are not drip fed out as they are counted, as in Australia. Instead, candidates only find out if they have won once all the votes in their electorate have been tallied.
And they are compelled to attend, in person, the result announcement alongside their rivals. So Mr Sunak may have to face the cameras at the very moment he hears of his own political demise.
Brits go to the polls on Thursday, UK time. All 650 Westminster seats are up for grabs with 326 needed to govern.
Polls close at 10pm (7am Friday, AEST) with most results coming in around midmorning in Australia.
At the last election, the Tories comfortably won with 365 seats to 202 for Labour, which is now led by Sir Kier Starmer.
The Tory success was largely down to a promise by Mr Johnson to “get Brexit done” and a divisive would-be PM in the form of Labour’s then leader Jeremy Corbyn.
That helped the Conservatives pick up scores of traditionally Labour seats in Britain’s north around the cities of Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, which were once called the ‘Red Wall’ due to Labour’s colours being red.
But it’s been downhill since then. Mr Johnson was widely blamed for a lacklustre initial response to the Covid pandemic.
Then the “partygate” scandal broke with revelations of multiple alcohol fuelled gatherings in Downing Street when UK citizens were ordered to remain at home, some were barred from hospitals where loved ones died of the disease.
Mr Johnson was replaced by Liz Truss as PM who then resigned just weeks later after a heavily criticised new budget.
A former treasurer, Mr Sunak is widely credited as stabilising the Tory ship, but likely not enough to stop it from sinking on Friday morning.
Mr Sunak has said a Tory win would lead to more health spending, the introduction of compulsory national service for young people and deporting immigrants who arrived illegally to Rwanda, similar to Australia and Nauru.
Labour has said it will reduce hospital waiting lists, not increase taxes and recruit more teachers.
But issues frustrating voters globally, like the cost of living, have harmed the UK government. That’s in addition to a general malaise after a decade and a half of Conservative government, particularly with the state of the nation’s health service.
It hasn’t helped that Reform UK, the former Brexit Party, appears resurgent and could peel off some right wing Conservative voters.
Labour could see landslide
Labour is widely expected to achieve a landslide, winning back seats it lost in 2019 and adding MPs in prosperous outer suburbs and market towns.
The opposition could also take a chunk of seats away from the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) which has been beset by scandals.
A YouGov poll released on the eve of the election gives Labour 39 per cent of the vote. In the UK’s election system, where voters can only pick one candidate and whoever has the most votes wins, that could deliver 431 seats to Labour.
On 22 per cent, the Tories could get 102 seats. The centrist Liberal Democrats are forecast to land with 72 seats, a huge jump on their current 11. While Scotland’s SNP could fall from 48 to 18 MPs.
While Reform UK could get a 15 per cent national vote that might only translate into a win in three seats, states YouGov. But for a far right party that would be an earthquake in UK politics.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer could be Prime Minister by lunchtime on Friday, after being appointed by King Charles III within hours of the result.
His party has run a disciplined, almost dull, election campaign in an attempt simply not to scare voters away.
“I know there are very close constituencies across the country, I don’t take anything for granted,” Mr Starmer told the BBC.
“I respect the voters, and I know that we have to earn every vote until 10 o’clock tomorrow night.”
Its main worry is that Labour voters end up being so sure of victory that they fail to actually vote. Voting in the UK, unlike Australia, is not compulsory.
Sunak: Result ‘not foregone conclusion’
“We just saw some analysis which showed that just 130,000 people can make the difference in this election,” Mr Sunak told the UK’s ITV, trying to shore up support.
“So, everyone watching who thinks, ‘Oh, this is all a foregone conclusion’ – it’s not.”
Former PM Mr Johnson said a Labour majority of 400 would be a “sledgehammer … pregnant with horrors”.
Mr Sunak could yet keep his seat. Located away from a major cities and dominated by agriculture, it’s a seat the Tories should hold on to.
But there are concerns that Labour’s win could be so big – and Tory turnout so low – that he will be swept away.
But should he lose, Mr Sunak will be comfortable. He’s reportedly the richest British PM in history.
According to newspaper The Sunday Times, he and his wife Akshata Murty are worth at least 650 million pounds ($A1.2 billions), largely due to his wife’s shares of an IT company, Infosys.
A former analyst with investment bank Goldman Sachs, finance is an industry which would likely welcome Mr Sunak back into its ranks.
Indeed, if the Tories lose – so he is no longer PM – but Mr Sunak manages to hang on to his seat he may decide to resign as an MP anyway.
Banking may be more tempting than five years on the backbenches.
Originally published as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ’genuinely fearful’ of final election humiliation
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