British opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer looks on as he visits Morrisons supermarket during a Labour general election campaign event in Wiltshire, Britain, June 19, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Two polls have found the UK’s Labour party was set to win a record-breaking number of seats and the incumbent Conservatives due for a historic drubbing in July’s general election.

With voters heading to the polls in just over two weeks time, the latest pair of nationwide surveys — by YouGov and Savanta/Electoral Calculus — showed Labour set to win either 425 or 516 out of 650 seats.

Either of the results would be the current opposition party’s best-ever return of MPs in a general election.

ALSO READ | Snap poll: On the surprise election announcement for the U.K.

Meanwhile, the twin polls showed support for the Tories — in power since 2010 — plummeting to unprecedented lows, with one estimating they would win just 53 seats.

The Savanta and Electoral Calculus survey for the Daily Telegraph newspaper predicted Rishi Sunak would become the first sitting U.K. prime minister ever to lose their seat at a general election.

The poll, which forecasts three-quarters of Mr. Sunak’s cabinet also losing their seats, would hand Labour a majority of 382 — more than double the advantage enjoyed by ex-prime minister Tony Blair in 1997.

It also showed the centrist Liberal Democrats just three seats behind the Conservatives on 50, and the Scottish National Party losing dozens of seats north of the English border.

Record Tory defeat?

The YouGov survey predicted Mr. Sunak’s party would win in just 108 constituencies.

That was a drop of 32 on its prediction from two weeks ago, reflecting how badly the Conservatives’ election campaign is perceived to have gone.

The 108 seats the Tories are predicted to win in the poll would still be their lowest number in the party’s near 200-year history of contesting U.K. elections.

Mr. Sunak is widely seen as having run a lacklustre and error-strewn campaign, including facing near-universal criticism earlier this month for leaving early from D-Day commemoration events in France.

In contrast, Labour leader Keir Starmer, set to become prime minister if his party prevails on July 4, has sought to play it safe and protect his party’s poll leads.

YouGov also found anti-EU populist Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party on course to win five seats, including in the Clacton constituency in eastern England where the Brexit figurehead is standing.

Mr. Farage has said he will attempt to co-opt what remains of the Conservative party if he is elected and it fares poorly on July 4.

“I changed Labour. I will fight for you and change Britain,” Keir Starmer, chief of the Labour party, wrote on X on May 28, as part of his campaign for the U.K. elections, scheduled to be held on July 4.

Whether Mr. Starmer will fulfil the promise remains to be seen. However, the Opposition leader has certainly changed the identity of Labour from former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s time. Mr. Starmer, who became an MP in 2015, ran for leadership of Labour in 2020 after Mr. Corbyn, a leftist, resigned following the party’s defeat in the 2019 election. Mr. Starmer stood for the leadership race with an agenda of 10 key pledges, which he stated was ‘based on the moral case for socialism’. Some of the key pledges include an increase of income tax for 5% of top earners, restricting the U.K.’s arms sales, nationalising the rail, mail, energy and water sectors, a new Green Deal, strengthening workers rights, etc. But since his election as party leader, Mr. Starmer has abandoned most of these promises.

Mr. Starmer’s recurring defence has been that Brexit, the COVID pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the disastrous policies of the Tory government had completely destroyed the nation’s economic progress. What is of utmost priority, at the present moment, is economic and financial stability. This is reflected in Labour’s election manifesto as well.

In the manifesto, Labour pledges to nationalise just the railways. It also walked back on the promise of raising taxes of the top rich as it’s a ‘different situation’ now that the U.K. has its highest tax burden since the Second World War. Mr. Starmer has also put on hold a €28 billion climate investment promise which he made in 2022.

Additionally, he has been accused of carrying out a systemic phasing out of the more left-wing candidates of the party. This internal divide has come out in full force recently as decisions are being taken about the candidates to be fielded by the party for the coming election. A couple of incumbent leftwing MPs have been banned from standing for elections. Diane Abbott, the first Black woman MP in the U.K. said Labour was carrying out a “cull of leftwingers”.

Another common link being drawn between the banned MPs has been their call for a permanent and immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. Mr. Starmer has, contrarily, thrown his weight behind Israel, upholding its “right to defend itself”. At one point, when asked whether cutting off water and power supplies into Gaza would be an appropriate response, he replied: “I think that Israel does have that right”. It is only recently, after Israel’s Rafah onslaught began, that Mr. Starmer called for a ceasefire ‘that lasts’.

Some say the shift from the initial pledges to status quo has been an act of betrayal by Mr. Starmer, a tool used to gain votes from both sides of the party for leadership. Others say it’s part of his pragmatic and solution-oriented outlook on politics.

Idealist to realist

Mr. Starmer was born into a working class family in 1962. He has repeatedly drawn attention to this fact to emphasise his commitment to the working people and trade unions. He grew up in poverty, being one among four siblings with an ailing mother. His father used to work as a toolmaker in his village in Surrey. Following his schooling, Mr. Starmer went on to study law, and became the first person in his family to graduate college.

Mr. Starmer’s record as a human rights lawyer had earned him a good deal of ire from both the progressive and conservative factions of society before he had even entered politics.

The Opposition leader has always centred human rights in his practice. In his early days, he would travel across Caribbean countries defending convicts against the death penalty, a punishment he says “horrifies him”. He was also involved in the famous Mclibel case wherein he defended two environmentalists who were taken to court by McDonalds on charges of libel for stating that the company was damaging the environment.

He was deeply committed to bringing out large-scale change, often feeling frustrated at the lack of systemic changes through individual cases.

His shift towards a ‘realist’ started in 2003, when he was appointed the human rights adviser to the Policing Board in Northern Ireland. From 2008 to 2013, he had been the Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). He would later reflect on his time in these institutions as key to his political approach.

“I came better to understand how you can change by being inside and getting the trust of people”, he said.

As Director of the CPS, Mr. Starmer tried to stay true to his human rights-based approach. For example, certain high profile sexual abuse cases led him to change the CPS’s guidelines on sexual assault cases wherein prosecutors were asked to start from a position of believing the victim. He also brought to book several MPs over false accounting charges. However, he was decried for his disproportionate response towards student protestors in 2010 wherein he advocated for rapid sentencing. He has also faced public scrutiny for refusing to prosecute police officers in cases such as that of Jean Charles de Menendez, a Brazilian immigrant who was killed by police who mistook him for a terror suspect, and Ian Tomlinson, who was killed by policemen during a protest against the 2009 G-20 summit.

However, as Director of the CPS, his role in the Julian Assange extradition trial must be one of his least known cases. Mr. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is now detained in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London and is involved in a prolonged legal battle against his extradition to the U.S. Mr. Starmer had tried to fast-track Mr. Assange’s extradition to the U.S — he took various trips to the U.S. with respect to the case, and persuaded the Swedish authorities to keep their case of extradition open.

A ‘New Deal’

Some experts state that Mr. Starmer has no ideology. Some others have compared him to Tony Blair because of his apathy towards ideology and his drive to revamp the Labour party, especially after the Corbyn years.

However, unlike Tony Blair, Mr. Starmer has called for the party to take up the cause of the workers and the trade unions, upheld nationalisation of public industries and talked about putting more money into businesses. He is fully committed to Labour’s “New Deal for Working People”, which calls for expanding collective bargaining and granting workers’ basic rights, such as sick pay, parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal. He doesn’t support giving markets a free rein but believes in shaping the market for economic growth through policy. He also believes in climate justice and setting up of green industries. Thus, with all opinion polls and trends predicting a win for Labour, Mr. Starmer has firmly placed the party in a centrist position. His vision has been coined by some as Starmerism, wherein economic stability, workers rights and climate justice hold precedence.

However, with a stagnant economy, a health system in shambles, collapsing public services, and high national debt, it is to be seen whether Starmerism can hold ground.

London:

UK Labour leader Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer turned state prosecutor whose ruthless ambition and formidable work ethic look set to propel him to Britain’s highest political office.

The 61-year-old, whose unusual first name was his socialist parents’ tribute to Labour’s founding father Keir Hardie, is also the centre-left party’s most working-class leader in decades.

“My dad was a toolmaker, my mum was a nurse,” Starmer tells voters often, countering depictions by opponents that the one-time “lefty lawyer” is the epitome of a smug, liberal, London elite.

With his grey quiff and black-rimmed glasses, Starmer remains an enigma in the eyes of many voters, who will likely hand him the keys to 10 Downing Street in a general election on July 4 nonetheless.

Detractors label him an uninspiring opportunist, but supporters insist he is a managerial pragmatist who will approach being prime minister the same way he did his legal career: tirelessly and forensically.

“Politics has to be about service,” Starmer said in a campaign speech on Monday, repeating his mantra to put “country first, party second” following 14 years of Conservative rule that brought five prime ministers.

Sometimes appearing uncomfortable in the spotlight, the football-daft Arsenal fan — who came to politics late in life — has struggled to shed his public image as buttoned-up and boring.

But the married father-of-two is said to be funny and loyal in private, while his route to the cusp of the premiership is more interesting than he is given credit for.

Mother’s death

Born on September 2, 1962, Keir Rodney Starmer was raised in a cramped, semi-detached house on the outskirts of London by a seriously ill mother and an emotionally distant father.

He had three siblings, one of whom had learning difficulties, and his parents were animal lovers who rescued donkeys.

“Whenever one of us left home, they replaced us with a donkey,” Starmer has joked.

A talented musician, Starmer had violin lessons at school with Norman Cook, the former Housemartins bassist who became DJ Fatboy Slim, and attended a prestigious London music school at weekends.

After legal studies at the universities of Leeds and Oxford, Starmer turned his attention to radical causes, defending trade unions, anti-McDonald’s activists and death row inmates abroad.

He is friends with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney from their time together at the same legal practice and once recounted a boozy lunch he had with her and her Hollywood actor husband George.

“There were quite a lot of empty bottles by the end of the evening,” Starmer remembered.

In 2003, he began moving towards the establishment, shocking colleagues and friends, first with a job ensuring police in Northern Ireland complied with human rights legislation.

Five years later, he was appointed director of public prosecutions for England and Wales by the then-Labour government.

Between 2008 and 2013, he oversaw the prosecution of MPs for abusing their expenses, journalists for phone-hacking, and young rioters involved in the 2011 unrest across England.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, but rarely uses the prefix “Sir”, and in 2015 was elected as a member of parliament, representing a seat in left-leaning north London.

Just weeks before he was elected, his mother died of a rare disease of the joints that had left her unable to walk for many years.

Rebellion

In 2021 he broke down in tears in a TV interview as he described how her agonising death “broke” his father.

Just a year after becoming an MP, Starmer joined a rebellion by Labour lawmakers over left-winger Jeremy Corbyn’s perceived lack of leadership during the EU referendum campaign.

It failed, and later that year he rejoined the top team as Labour’s Brexit spokesman, where he remained until succeeding Corbyn in April 2020.

Starmer has since shown ruthlessness by purging Corbyn from the party, moving it back to the centre, and making moves to root out anti-Semitism that had made Labour unelectable.

The left accuses him of betrayal for dropping a number of pledges he made during his successful leadership campaign, including the scrapping of university tuition fees.

But his strategic repositioning of Labour to put it back on a path to power is indicative of a constant throughout his life: a drive to succeed.

“If you’re born without privilege, you don’t have time for messing around,” Starmer once said.

“You don’t walk around problems without fixing them, and you don’t surrender to the instincts of organisations that won’t face up to change.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In the 1990s, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s New Labour courted UK business in efforts that became known as the “prawn cocktail offensive” – a reference to the seafood appetizer that in times gone by was known for featuring at posh lunches.

In recent months, the current Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has revived the charm offensive, a move that has irked those on the left of the party. This time, it has been dubbed the “smoked salmon and scrambled eggs offensive,” with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves enjoying a series of CEO breakfasts.

With a general election now set for July 4, the Conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and Starmer are fighting to convince the business world they are the right person to run the country.

As both leaders race to put the finishing touches on their manifestos, we spoke to the bosses of seven UK companies spanning pubs and housebuilding about what they want from the country’s next premier.

Steven Fine, Peel Hunt

The investment bank’s chief executive officer wants the next government to push through reforms to London’s equity market, which he called “the engine room for our entire economy.” London has seen a number of companies quit the stock market in recent months, blaming low valuations and a lack of liquidity.

Fine said he hopes the government’s Mansion House reforms – measures announced last year to boost investment in UK assets but which are now up in the air – are finalized.

“It’s crucial that the next government follows through and builds on the Mansion House commitments to encourage pension capital into high-growth businesses and small and mid cap listed companies,” Fine said.

He’s also a champion of the UK ISA to encourage domestic investment, and supports plans to require pension funds to disclose their investment in British companies. “You can’t have a strong economy without a thriving domestic market,” he added.

Martin Sorrell, S4 Capital

Workers’ rights reforms proposed by deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner are “the thing that worries business big time,” the founder and executive chairman of advertising company S4 Capital Plc said in a telephone interview, calling them Labour’s “Achilles heel.”

“We need a plan,” Sorrell added, noting the need to reduce uncertainty. “I think the main concern for business is whether they are going to do what they say.” He also called for solutions to low productivity in the UK.

John Roberts, AO World

The founder and chief executive of the electrical goods retailer stressed the “urgent” need to reform the Apprenticeship Levy to help business and support young people in the UK.

“Reform the levy, get the right people and organizations involved in the solution – like AO, M&S, Tesco and Timpson – who know what they’re doing and are standing by, ready to create opportunities to transform young people’s futures,” Roberts said. “Government is a brilliant funder but not an operator or innovator.”

Tim Martin, J D Wetherspoon

A longtime campaigner for bars and restaurants to be taxed the same as grocers, the founder and chairman of the pub chain argues that the current rules put his industry at a disadvantage. The hospitality industry pays higher taxes for food and alcohol, meaning supermarket groups are able to cut prices of beer and wine, Martin said.

“It’s a principle of taxation that it should be fair and equitable and this inequality is inequitable, so Wetherspoon is calling on the new government to create a level playing field,” he said.

Graham Prothero, MJ Gleeson

Three things need to be done to help ease the shortage of new houses, according to the homebuilder’s CEO. “Kick start the first-time buyer market with a targeted fiscal stimulus, help us to address the critical shortage of skilled tradespeople, and, above all, make the planning system fit-for-purpose,” Prothero said.

The government set out a target to build 300,000 new homes a year in England in its 2019 manifesto but has failed to get close to the goal.

Janine Hirt, Innovate Finance

The two main political parties might not yet have published their manifestos, but the fintech body has released one of its own. It calls on the next government to prioritize tackling fraud and create a better regulatory environment for adopting new technologies in finance.

“We urge all parties to consider these ambitions and recognize the role fintech can play in supporting the next government in tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the nation, from growing the economy, tackling fraud, and driving better financial wellness for consumers across the country,” Innovate Finance’s chief executive said.

Tom Grogan, Wingstop UK

The co-founder of Lemon Pepper Holdings, the master franchisee of chicken shop chain Wingstop Inc. in the UK, called for property taxes on retailers to be overhauled. Hospitality and retail leaders have criticized so-called business rates, which they say are unfairly high.

“Our high streets are vital to the UK’s economy, yet many traditional bricks and mortar businesses are struggling under the weight of an outdated business rates structure,” he said. “This needs to be reassessed to level the playing field.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks during an event to launch Labour’s election pledges at The Backstage Centre on May 16, 2024 in Purfleet, United Kingdom.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Britain’s main opposition Labour party on May 16 set out its stall for this year’s general election, outlining six key pledges to voters in a de-facto campaign launch.

The vote is likely months away but the U.K.’s two main parties are already positioning themselves to the electorate in what is looking like a long run-in to polling day.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak outlined his plan on Monday, urging voters to keep faith with his ruling Conservatives even after 14 tumultuous years in power.

Labour leader Keir Starmer laid out his party’s “first steps” for government at an event in Essex, a key battleground area in southeast England, promising economic stability, shorter health service waiting times and a new border security command to tackle irregular immigration.

He also vowed to set up a publicly owned clean energy company, crack down on anti-social behaviour with more neighbourhood police and recruit 6,500 new teachers.

“I’m not going to give you gimmicks,” said Starmer, who paced the stage in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, as his top team, many of whom also made speeches, looked on.

“There’s no quick fix to the mess that the Tories have made of this country, but this is a changed Labour party with a plan to take us forward.

“I have ambition for this country and like all ambition that starts with first steps,” he added.

Mission

The pledges, which have largely been made before, are intended to add some flesh to the bones of five “missions” that Labour says will spur a “decade of national renewal” after 14 years of Tory rule.

They are set to feature on advertising vans and billboards in target constituencies across England in what Labour says is its most expensive ad campaign since the 2019 general election.

At that vote, Labour under the leadership of left-winger Jeremy Corbyn suffered a landslide defeat to the Tories, then led by ex-prime minister Boris Johnson.

Starmer has since moved Labour to the centre ground, while the Conservatives have been riven by infighting and seen its reputation for economic credibility shattered by Liz Truss’s short reign.

Labour have enjoyed double-digit leads in most opinion polls since Truss’s disastrous mini-budget of unfunded tax cuts spooked financial markets and sank the pound in autumn 2022.

Sunak, who took over from Truss in October 2022, must hold the election by January 28, 2025.

He has tried numerous resets to revive his party’s fortunes. On Monday he insisted the Tories can still win, despite indications from polling, and warned that Labour would threaten U.K. security.

He also again refused to set a date for the general election.

London:

A pragmatic, safe pair of hands or an uninspiring flip-flopper? Labour leader Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer currently on track to become Britain’s next prime minister.

When Starmer took charge of the party three years ago after the disastrous reign of socialist Jeremy Corbyn, he vowed to unite it and get it back on a path to power.

The 61-year-old has moved the main opposition back to the centre ground, quietened dissent among the left, and rooted out anti-Semitism within its ranks, making Labour an electable proposition.

“He has absolutely put Labour in a place where it could win the next general election, and a lot of people thought that was really, really ambitious and quite unlikely,” political scientist Karl Pike told AFP.

Labour heads into its annual conference in Liverpool, northwest England, this weekend enjoying double-digit leads in opinion polls ahead of a general election expected next year.

Many observers say that is largely down to chaotic Conservative rule that has resulted in three different prime ministers in four years, following upheaval over Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

A cost-of-living crisis and strikes plaguing several sectors are also seen as contributing to Britons’ desire for change after 13 years of Tory government, rather than overwhelming support for Starmer himself.

He has, in fact, negative approval ratings.

“He’s not an inspirational speaker. I mean, he’s not Tony Blair,” said Steven Fielding, a politics expert at the University of Nottingham and Labour party member.

“(But) I think Starmer has calculated that if he just presents himself as a sober, serious, boring person after all of the nonsense that’s gone on before… that will just be about enough to get through.”

Starmer, a keen footballer and Arsenal fan, was born in London, one of four siblings, to a toolmaker father and a nurse mother, both of whom were animal lovers who rescued donkeys.

“Whenever one of us left home, they replaced us with a donkey,” he has joked.

His unusual first name was his socialist parents’ tribute to Labour’s founding father, Keir Hardie.

At school he had violin lessons with Norman Cook, the former Housemartins bassist who became DJ Fatboy Slim.

After legal studies at the universities of Leeds and Oxford, Starmer turned his attention to radical causes, defending trades unions and anti-McDonald’s activists.

Mother’s death

The married father-of-two is friends with fellow human rights lawyer Amal Clooney from their time together at the same legal practice.

In 2003, he began his move to the establishment with a job ensuring police in Northern Ireland complied with human rights legislation.

Five years later, he was appointed director of public prosecutions for England and Wales by the then Labour government.

Between 2008 and 2013, he oversaw the prosecution of MPs for abusing their expenses, journalists for phone-hacking, and young rioters involved in 2011 unrest across England.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and in 2015, was elected as a member of parliament, representing a seat in left-leaning north London.

Just weeks before he was elected, his mother died of a rare disease of the joints.

In 2021 he broke down in tears in a TV interview as he described how her agonising death “broke” his father.

In 2016, Starmer joined a rebellion by Labour MPs over Corbyn’s perceived lack of leadership during the EU referendum campaign.

It failed, and later that year he rejoined the top team as Labour’s Brexit spokesman, where he remained until succeeding Corbyn in April 2020.

Starmer has endured attacks from the Tories for dropping a number of pledges he made during his successful leadership campaign, including scrapping university tuition fees.

Critics say he is indecisive and accuse him of failing to spell out a clear vision for the country.

Supporters, though, say he is right to keep his cards close to his chest until an election date is announced.

“He probably is right to be cautious but I think his egg is about to hatch now and we’ll see more from him in the coming months,” Dave Mullaney, a 54-year-old Labour party activist in the southwestern city of Bristol, told AFP.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)