Sunak claims Starmer could put Brexit in peril

Home Secretary Cleverly has claimed Labour will “open the door to 100,000 illegal migrants” which a Labour spokesperson has labelled as desperate lies…reports Asian Lite News

Rishi Sunak has made a series of claims about rival Keir Starmer and his intentions if Labour get into government – claiming he “would recommit us to free movement of EU citizens, taking thousands more illegal migrants and binding our businesses again in Brussels red tape”.

“Keir Starmer has never believed we can succeed as a sovereign country and has tried to overturn the result time and time again,” he said. “Now he has committed to years more wrangling the EU and abandoning all our hard-won freedoms like the ability to strike more trade deals and cut more red tape.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has claimed Starmer and Labour “have never believed in Britain’s ability to forge its own path”.

“Instead of using the opportunities, Starmer wants to renegotiate the Brexit deal, taking us back to square one of being a rule-taker from Brussels,” she added.

“Only the Conservatives will continue to take the bold action required to build a secure, independent future for our country.”

Starmer last month told he plans to seek “a better [Brexit] deal than the one that we’ve got” if elected in next month’s general election. “I don’t think many people look at that deal and think it’s working very well,” he said of the current trade arrangements. “We were promised an oven-ready deal and we got something that was, frankly, half-baked.”

The Labour manifesto makes one mention of Brexit. It reads: “With Labour, Britain will stay outside of the EU. But to seize the opportunities ahead, we must make Brexit work. We will reset the relationship and seek to deepen ties with our European friends, neighbours and allies,” it continues. “That does not mean reopening the divisions of the past. There will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement. Instead, Labour will work to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU, by tearing down unnecessary barriers to trade.”

Meanwhile, Home Secretary James Cleverly has claimed Labour will “open the door to 100,000 illegal migrants” in a piece for the Sunday Telegraph – which a Labour spokesperson has already labelled “desperate lies from a party that has totally failed to control our borders or manage the asylum system”.

And in The Times, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has said in a new interview: “I think one of the biggest question marks over Labour is what they would do in terms of relations with the EU because it is on the record that Starmer did everything he could to frustrate a Brexit deal and to secure a second referendum.

“I was in the room with him when we were trying to negotiate an agreement between Labour and the Conservatives under Theresa [May] to secure a Brexit deal.”

Meanwhile, as polls continue to predict Labour are heading for a comfortable majority, their national campaign co-ordinator has reminded the public: “Change will only happen if you vote for it.”

Labour’s national campaign coordinator Pat McFadden wrote in the Observer: “There is a danger that the debate in this election becomes consumed by polls and specifically by the idea that the outcome is somehow pre-determined… No way is this election a done deal.

“The headlines about the clutch of MRP polls disguise a huge level of uncertainty.”

Sunak predicted to lose seat

Meanwhile, two polls have found the 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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