Britain’s political party leaders were crisscrossing the country on Thursday, the first day of a six-week election campaign in which voters will decide whether to end the governing Conservatives’ 14 years in power.
Britain’s political party leaders were crisscrossing the country on Thursday, the first day of a six-week election campaign in which voters will decide whether to end the governing Conservatives’ 14 years in power.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, battling to overcome the widespread sense that his party is on the ropes, gambled on an earlier-than-expected July 4 election, arguing his party can give the country security in turbulent times. The main opposition Labour Party says it will bring much-needed change after years of political and economic turmoil under the Tories.
“We will stop the chaos,” said Labour leader Keir Starmer, the current favorite to be Britain’s next prime minister. He said that if the Conservatives “get another five years, they will feel entitled to carry on exactly as they are. Nothing will change.”
“You now have the power, the chance to end the chaos, to turn the page and rebuild Britain,” he told voters at a campaign stop in southeast England.
Sunak took many of his own lawmakers by surprise when he called the election Wednesday, in an ill-starred televised announcement outside 10 Downing St. that saw him drenched with rain and drowned out by protesters blasting a Labour campaign song.
Most had expected a fall election after Sunak said repeatedly that the vote would be in the second half of the year. July 4 fits that bill, barely.
Sunak, who plans to visit England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the next 48 hours, said Thursday that the election call showed “I’m prepared to take bold action.
