British Conservatives say opposition on course for record election victory

The UK Conservative Party all but conceded election defeat to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on Wednesday (3), a day before polling stations opened, and warned that the opposition party was on track for a record victory.

Opinion polls show the centre-left Labour Party is set to win a landslide victory in Thursday’s (4) vote, which would end 14 years of Conservative rule and hand Starmer the keys to the prime minister’s office at 10 Downing Street on Friday morning (5).

Both Starmer and Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak began the final day of campaigning before polls opened by warning voters of dire economic consequences if the other won.

But faced with predictions of the worst result in the party’s history, the Conservatives turned their focus to damage limitation, saying they needed to hold onto enough seats to provide an effective opposition to a Labour government.

“I fully accept that the state of the polls at the moment means that tomorrow we are likely to have the biggest ever Labour landslide majority, the biggest majority this country has ever seen,” Conservative minister Mel Stride told the BBC.

“So what matters now is what kind of opposition we have, what kind of government control capacity exists in Parliament.”

Asked about Stride’s comments, Sunak told ITV: “I’m fighting hard for every vote.”

Polling analysis by Survation predicts Labour will win 484 of the 650 seats in Parliament, far more than the 418 won by former party leader Tony Blair in his landslide victory in 1997, and the highest number in its history.

The Conservatives are predicted to win just 64 seats, which would be the lowest number since the party was founded in 1834.

Other analyses showed smaller margins of victory for Labour, but none showed a different overall result.