Britons are voting today in the early parliamentary elections called unexpectedly by Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that are anticipated to bring the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer to power, ousting the current PM after 14 stormy years, international media reported.
The polls are showing Starmer’s centre-left party on track for a landslide win, but many voters just want change after a period of increasing austerity under the Conservatives, marred by having had five different prime ministers in the last eight years.
This means that Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer, might enter office with one of the most ambitious to-do lists in British history, but without a groundswell of support or the financial wherewithal to address it.
Sunak, 44, voted early this morning with his wife, Akshata Murty, in Richmond, North Yorkshire, the district he represents in parliament.
Around 8:30 am GMT, Starmer and his wife voted in his north London constituency of Holborn-St. Pancras.
Sunak has issued a rallying call to voters warning that a Labour government would raise taxes, hamper economic recovery, and make Britain more vulnerable at a time of geopolitical tensions.
Based on the polls, however, Britain is expected to join several other European countries in throwing out their present governments for failing to address cost-of-living crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine armec conflict.
Labour has enjoyed a 15 to 20-point poll lead since immediately after Sunak was appointed by his coalition MPs in October 2022 to replace Liz Truss, who quit after 44 days, causing a bond market crisis and the pound sterling to crash.
Starmer, the former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, took over Labour from veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn after the party suffered its worst defeat in 84 years in 2019. Starmer has steered it back toward the middle.
At the same time, the Conservatives in Westminster have crumbled, driven apart by scandal under former PM Boris Johnson, a domestic schism that followed brexit, and a failure to meet the expectations of the Tories’ wider 2019 voter base.
While Johnson’s scandals tarnished the party’s image, Truss harmed its long-standing economic credibility, leaving Sunak to steer the ship.
During his tenure, inflation has diminished from its 41-year high of 11.1%, and he settled some Brexit issues, but polls have remained low.
Starmer may gain from a Labour revival in Scotland, where the Scottish National Party (the more centrist, left-leaning, Scottish Independence party) has been on a self-destructive road following a financing scandal.
Starmer’s campaign is based on the one-word promise of “Change.” It has tapped into Britons’ dissatisfaction about over-stressed public services and deteriorating living standards.
Starmer has often stated that he will not be able to repair anything quickly, but that his party has sought overseas investment to assist with the issues.
Sunak maintains that his 20 months in leadership has put the economy on an upward trajectory, which he says he will continue with “bold” action, and that Labour should not be allowed to “jeopardize” such progress.