British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak yesterday called for an early national election, curiously for July 4. It will occur as Sunak’s Conservative Party is trailing the opposition Labour Party in the polls by as much as 20 percentage points and has recently lost several by- elections. Sunak made his statement yesterday afternoon in the rain in front of No.10 Downing Street, while he competed with nearby protesters singing the Labour Party anthem, which almost drowned out his announcement. If the dark clouds and singing by protesters weren’t an ominous signal for Sunak, he might have contemplated how the 4th of July worked out for Britain’s throne back in the day.
He stated: “Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future and decide whether it wants to build on the progress we have made or risk going back to square one and no certainty. Over the next few weeks, I will fight for every vote, I will earn your trust and I will prove to you that only a Conservative government led by me will not put our hard-earned economic stability at risk.”
It will clearly be an uphill fight for Sunak, who hasn’t even the full support of his own party. It promises to be a repeat of 1997, when Labour’s Tony Blair defeated the hapless John Major. In fact, today’s Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, is a sort of ‘Tony Blair lite,’ with the same Russophobe policies as those of the current government. Sunak, like his Tory predecessor John Major, who came to power following the ouster of Margret Thatcher, also did not come to power in a general election. And Starmer, similar to Blair, became head of the Labour Party after a purge of the party’s left wing.
