Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are set to begin a frantic final few days of campaigning as polling day rapidly approaches.
Both men will today reiterate their core messages as they try to motivate their backers to get out to the polling booths on Thursday.
The Labour leader will impress on the nation that if they want change they “have to vote for it” – while the Conservative leader will warn there are “four days to save Britain from a Labour government”.
Mr Sunak has suggested that Labour are on track for a “supermajority”, with the opposition having managed to maintain a roughly 20-point lead in the opinion polls, according to the Sky News Poll Tracker – something Sir Keir will do everything to ensure does not change.
The Liberal Democrats are set to continue their push to replace the Tories in seats that have traditionally been considered their heartlands – while the SNP will try to convince Scots to back them as polls show Labour could become the largest Scottish parliamentary contingent once again.
Mr Sunak is set to campaign in the Midlands today, where he will warn against giving “Keir Starmer and Labour a blank cheque”.
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Speaking at a rally later, the prime minister will say of Labour: “If they get the kind of majority, the supermajority that the polls suggest, they will set about entrenching themselves in power.
“They will rewrite the rules to make it easier for them to stay in office and harder for anyone to replace them. So, don’t surrender your voice to Labour on Thursday.”
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Seemingly in a bid to limit the scale of the defeat, rather than emerge victorious, the Tory leader will say that “an unchecked Labour government would be a disaster from which it would take decades to recover”.
“We Conservatives will stand up for you and make sure your voice is heard, your values represented.”
The Conservative Party is also claiming today that Labour’s immigration plans will result in a “deluge” of asylum seekers, leading to tax hikes of £635 per family each year – something a Labour spokesperson has branded a “ludicrous lie from an increasingly desperate Tory party”.
The opposition claimed the Tories have “completely lost control of the asylum system or border security” and if they are re-elected “the chaos will continue and costs will soar further”.
Labour win ‘not inevitable’ – Starmer
Labour will also vow to ensure petty theft is punished by scrapping a rule allowing people stealing goods worth under £200 to escape punishment, it is understood.
More broadly, the party will continue to make the wider case for change, with national campaign coordinator Pat McFadden saying: “If people don’t want to wake up on 5 July to five more years of economic chaos, to wake up knowing that all the future offers is the same as the recent Tory past, then they have to vote Labour and vote for change on Thursday.”
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12:24
Leader interviews: Labour Party
Sir Keir Starmer also hammered home that message in an interview with The Guardian, saying: “People talk about the inevitable outcome. It isn’t inevitable. I think there’s a yearning for change. But, you know, what we always say, if you want change, you have to vote for it.”
He also told the paper “hope has been kicked out of many people” because of the Tories’ failure to deliver, adding: “There’s a near universal view that almost everything is broken, and we’re going backwards as a country. That’s very demoralising.
“They’ve also had to witness the politics of self-entitlement and self-enhancement from Westminster… I’m not surprised that people feel disaffected by politics. But we do have to restore it.”
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Sir Keir expressed concern about the rise in support for the populist right across Europe, and for Reform in the UK.
“You have to understand why that’s happening,” he said. “It’s based in this disaffection, this sense that politics cannot be a force for good, and you can’t trust politicians.”
He argued that progressive parties and governments could restore faith, however, saying: “That goes back to credible hope, deliverable hope, making the change that will be material for people’s lives.”
Lib Dems on bereavement payment cuts
First minister John Swinney will also be out on the campaign trail today, reiterating his core message that Scots need an “alternative” to Labour in Westminster to “represent Scotland’s values”.
The SNP leader said in a statement that the general election in England is a “foregone conclusion”, with a Labour win on the cards, and claimed Sir Keir Starmer would “carry on with the same broken politics and right-wing policies as the Tories”.
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1:30
Swinney pledges to continue push for indyref
He is arguing that the result in Scotland is on a “knife edge” – despite polls showing Labour in the lead – and that Sir Keir “simply represents more of the same broken Brexit Britain that does not reflect Scotland’s values”.
“The SNP is offering an alternative – a vision of hope with an end to austerity, rejoining the EU, eradicating child poverty and a future made in Scotland, for Scotland where Scotland’s interests are always put first,” said Mr Swinney.
“The only way to deliver that and put an end to the failure of Brexit which has caused so much damage to Scotland is to vote SNP on Thursday.
“Only the SNP offers Scotland the hope of a better future back in the EU – but we have to vote for it.”
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18:32
Leader interviews: Liberal Democrats
Sir Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats will be continuing their bid to take seats off the Tories – and are promoting a pledge they launched yesterday to reverse “heartless Tory cuts” to bereavement payments.
On the latter as it stands, a bereaved family where a spouse or partner has died receives a lump sum of up to £3,500, followed by a monthly payment of up to £350 for 18 months.
The party is calling for this period to be extended, and is pledging to inject an additional £440m a year into the system by 2028-29 to fund it.
‘Labour could take Wales for granted’
Plaid Cymru will be making their case to voters in Wales, arguing that the Welsh people will be “voiceless” if they do not have a “strong cohort” of MPs in Westminster.
The party’s leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, said Wales “simply doesn’t feature” in Tory and Labour electoral plans, while his party would push for “fair funding deal for Wales”.
“When people vote on Thursday, they expect their MP to speak up for them and their community, not to follow the Westminster whip at any cost,” a statement said.
“We know that the Tories are finished and the contempt they show Wales is nothing new – but with Labour set to enter Downing Street on Friday, there is a real danger that they will simply take Wales for granted.”
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10:03
Leader interviews: Plaid Cymru
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He added: “For a member of parliament who will always give Wales a voice in Westminster, who will always champion fairness and stand up against more cuts which have already devastated our public services, vote Plaid Cymru on 4 July.”
Reform UK will also be on the campaign trail as the party tries to stabilise its campaign following racism allegations.
Image: Farage’s Reform party will be trying to steady the ship after racism claims. Pic: Reuters
Yesterday, one of the party’s candidates disowned them and backed the Tories, saying he had become “increasingly disillusioned” with the behaviour of the party and accused leader Nigel Farage of not taking it seriously.
It followed the controversy over a Reform canvasser who was caught making a racial slur about the prime minister in an undercover investigation.
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The UK and four allies have criticised Israel’s decision to launch a new large-scale military operation in Gaza – warning it will “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation” in the territory.
The foreign ministers of Britain, Australia, Germany, Italy and New Zealand said in a joint statement that the offensive will “endanger the lives of hostages” and “risk violating international humanitarian law”.
It marks another escalation in the war in Gaza, sparked by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023.
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2:20
Can Netanyahu defeat Hamas ideology?
In their joint statement, the UK and its allies said they “strongly reject” the decision, adding: “It will endanger the lives of the hostages and further risk the mass displacement of civilians.
“The plans that the government of Israel has announced risk violating international humanitarian law. Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law.”
The countries also called for a permanent ceasefire as “the worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in Gaza”.
In a post on X, the Israeli prime minister’s office added: “Instead of supporting Israel’s just war against Hamas, which carried out the most horrific attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Germany is rewarding Hamas terrorism by embargoing arms to Israel.”
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2:33
Inside plane dropping aid over Gaza
US ambassador hits out at Starmer
Earlier on Friday, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, criticised Sir Keir Starmer after he said Israel’s decision to “escalate its offensive” in Gaza is “wrong”.
Mr Huckabee wrote on X: “So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved? Did UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? Ever heard of Dresden, PM Starmer? That wasn’t food you dropped. If you had been PM then UK would be speaking German!”
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In another post around an hour later Mr Huckabee wrote: “How much food has Starmer and the UK sent to Gaza?
“@IsraeliPM has already sent 2 MILLION TONS into Gaza & none of it even getting to hostages.”
Sir Keir has pledged to recognise a Palestinian state in September unless the Israeli government meets a series of conditions towards ending the war in Gaza.
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1:22
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Mr Vance described a “disagreement” about how the US and UK could achieve their “common objectives” in the Middle East, and said the Trump administration had “no plans to recognise a Palestinian state”.
He said: “I don’t know what it would mean to really recognise a Palestinian state given the lack of functional government there.”
Mr Vance added: “There’s a lot of common objectives here. There is some, I think, disagreement about how exactly to accomplish those common objectives, but look, it’s a tough situation.”
The UN Security Council will meet on Saturday to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, said earlier on Friday that a number of countries would be requesting a meeting of the UN Security Council on Israel’s plans.
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