British election on knife edge as Conservative lead plummets

In the campaign’s final hours, Boris Johnson appealed to the Conservative heartland.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson eats a portion of pie on the campaign bus in Derby on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

In the final hours of a knife-edge election campaign, Boris Johnson has appealed to the Conservative heartland on law and order in a bid to drag attention away from health after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn closed the gap between the main parties.

The Conservatives’ previously comfortable lead has plummeted, and while they are still considered to be ahead by six to eight points, pollsters are warning of the possibility of a hung ­parliament.

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The Prime Minister on Wednesday said Britain could find ­itself being led by Mr Corbyn, a “Hamas-backing, IRA-supporting, anti-Semitism-condoning appeaser of the Kremlin”.

“This could not be more critical, it could not be ­tighter. I just say to everybody, the risk is very real that we could tomorrow be going into another hung parliament,’’ he said. “That’s more drift, more dither, more delay, more paralysis for this country.”

Asked if he was nervous, Mr Johnson replied: “We’re fighting for every vote.”

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he was buoyed by the surge of Labour support and believed the party was “within touching distance of a victory’’.

The Labour Party’s effective Mediscare-type campaigning about the dire state of the Nat­ional Health Service and £450bn ($866bn) in spending promises have cut through with voters, at the same time as the fatigued electorate wants to forget about Mr Johnson’s main pitch of ­Brexit.

Mr Corbyn’s final pitch has been that Labour offers a “vote for hope”. In the event of an electoral earthquake, however, Mr Corbyn may well find that his source of money to fund his widespread giveaways and ­Marxist renational­isation of ­energy, water, mail, rail and broadband has left the country.

If you're not sure who to vote for, watch this. pic.twitter.com/rBCBLzfoRp

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) December 11, 2019

The proposed Labour tax hikes on anyone earning more than £80,000 a year and crippling new business taxes have many Tory supporters rapidly calculating their future.

The billionaire founder of Phones4U, John Caudwell, told Mr McDonnell on BBC Radio “nearly every wealthy person I know is thinking of leaving the UK, including me, if Labour get in”.

The exodus looks set to trickle down to small businesses and sole traders, who can seek a friendlier tax regime elsewhere.

A banking lawyer told The Australian that her company was being rushed for relocation advice by middle and high-level staff.

“There is a sense of panic that Labour might get in and no one seeking my advice wants to be part of their revolution,’’ she said.

The wave of fear among Tories has come as the final poll released by YouGov shows that some Tory-targeted “red belt’’ Leaver seats of Labour in the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire and Wales are not swinging across to support Mr Johnson’s Get Brexit Done message.

The heavy promotion of tactical voting by anti-Tory and pro-Remain activists is also having a significant impact.

Turnout in the first-past-the-post election is also key, with the weather particularly nasty in Scotland and heavy rain forecast for London. Such is the uncertainty that political analysts say only 40,000 voters out of the 46 million eligible in 36 of the 650 seats will determine the result.

Brexit, actually. pic.twitter.com/4ryuh19c75

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 9, 2019

On Wednesday, Mr Johnson stressed his planned changes to the judicial system, claiming it was too weak at handling the worst ­offenders.

The Prime Minister wants serious criminals convicted of terrorism, sex crimes and murder to serve their full sentences.

He said, however, it was also necessary to “put your arms around kids” and promised £500m for youth centres, adding to an another plan to spend £500m on local football pitches around the country.

In the final hours of the campaign, he was to launch a six-point pledge card that includes delivering Brexit 50,000 more nurses, 20,000 more police officers, an Australian-style points-based immigration system, net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and not raising income tax, the VAT or National Insurance.

He said of this election: “It will define the next decade — will we go forward, grow as a country, unleash our potential? Or will we remain stuck, stood still, unable to make any progress?”

‘I was having a bit of banter with a Tory friend – he’s only gone and leaked it all’ @JonAshworth

Watch him respond to a clip released to the Guido Fawkes website in which he appears to say Labour cannot win the election and its situation is ‘dire’. https://t.co/bPqZM8YAAb pic.twitter.com/P5NN5upWBa

— Victoria Derbyshire (@VictoriaLIVE) December 10, 2019

In the final hours of its campaign, Labour focused on attacking Mr Johnson’s character after the party was rocked when a leaked phone conversation by one of its leading politician, Jon Ashworth, showed internal concerns about Mr Corbyn’s philosophies and leadership.

Mr McDonnell told the BBC that Mr Johnson should have respected the wishes of the parents of Jack Merritt, one of the victims of the Fishmongers Hall and London Bridge terrorist attack, midway through the campaign, and that Mr Johnson lacked empathy after he was shown a picture of a sick child forced to lie on the floor of a Leeds hospital.

“I wish Boris Johnson had not seen that as, to quote the father of Jack Merritt, ‘an opportunity’,” Mr McDonnell said. “I just wish that he’d shown sympathy and respect and em­pathy.’’