British legislative elections: Sunak and Starmer on the offensive in their final televised debate

With the July 4 general election just a week away, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer went head-to-head in their latest televised debate on Wednesday night. As the election draws closer, Labour is still set for a landslide victory according to polls that have barely changed, with the Tories bearing the brunt of a laborious campaign marked by controversy and now a fraudulent betting scandal.

After a first duel at the beginning of June where the two adversaries were offensive, the tension rose another notch during this new debate. From the first exchanges the tone was set. In response to a question from a woman from the audience on the crisis of confidence between voters and their elected representatives, Keir Starmer castigated the Conservatives’ record, directly attacking Rishi Sunak, recalling for example that he had been fined for having violated the confinement rules during the Covid-19 epidemic.

Lively discussions on illegal immigration

“I think over the last 14 years politics has become too focused on complacency and MPs thinking about what they can get for themselves,” he said. And he promised to “reset politics so that it serves the public again.” Rishi Sunak retorted that integrity in politics was being “clear about what you want to do”, accusing his opponent “of not being honest about his plans to raise taxes”, one of his favorite lines of attack against Labor in the campaign.

The most lively exchange focused on the fight against illegal immigration. The Prime Minister defended his plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda, and strongly attacked Keir Starmer over the lack of precision in his program. “What would you do? What would you do? “It’s a simple question,” he said, while the Labor leader seemed in difficulty, limiting himself to repeating that he wanted to “tackle the gangs” of smugglers and improve the management of immigration requests. asylum to return more quickly those who have no intention of remaining in the United Kingdom.

For Keir Starmer, 61, the challenge was not to make any mistakes so close to the vote, even if the cautious line – advocating change and budgetary seriousness – that he has maintained for months may have left voters on their hunger. Although he often appeared on the defensive, this former lawyer repeatedly highlighted his past experience as head of the prosecutor’s office for England and Wales as a guarantee of his seriousness and methodical approach. to resolve the country’s problems, such as the economy, health or relations with the European Union.

A very divided conservative party

For his last major chance to turn around a difficult campaign, Rishi Sunak, 44 and in Downing Street for twenty months, once again targeted what the Conservatives consider to be one of Labor’s main weak points: their future tax policy. “You can have tax cuts with the Conservatives or you can have thousands of pounds of extra tax with the Labor Party,” he insisted. “Don’t give yourself over” to Labour, he insisted on numerous occasions.

It is not certain, however, that these attacks will be enough for the Prime Minister, at the head of a divided party trailing by around twenty points in the polls, to turn the tide, and in particular to make people forget his mistakes in the campaign. , like the controversy over his shortened trip to France for the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy.

The Tories are also threatened on their right by the anti-immigration Reform UK party, led by the thunderous Nigel Farage, who is trailing the Conservatives in the polls. And for a week, they have been entangled in a fraudulent betting scandal, with the sector police investigating to determine whether members of the party took advantage of inside information to bet on the date of the legislative elections announced in May.

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AFP/Fabien Le Floch

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