UK Election 2024: Everything you need to know

CNN —

British Chancellor Rishi Sunak has taken the biggest gamble of his turbulent premiership by calling an early general election that almost everyone in Westminster believes he will lose.

We'll soon find out whether that decision is a masterpiece or a misfire.

A frenzied six-week campaign will once again dominate British airwaves, putting the political battle front and center in a country exhausted by the country's tumultuous situation.

A victory for the opposition Labor Party, as current opinion polls show, would finally bring back the curtain on 14 years of Conservative rule and usher in a centre-left government led by former lawyer Keir Starmer.

A different result would mean Sunak orchestrated a shock victory that even many in his own party believed was out of reach, and would extend the Conservatives' political dynasty by two decades.

Here are answers to some key questions:

Why has Sunak called an election now and is it a gamble?

Sunak was supposed to call the election by December and conduct it by next month, but with the deadline coming more than five years after the last vote, the decision on when to hold a poll will depend on the chancellor's gift.

Sunak told reporters at a drinks reception last December that it would be 2024 rather than January 2025, and more recently said he assumed it would happen in the second half of the year, around July 4th.

But beyond these clues, he remained tight-lipped as he weighed his options, sparking feverish speculation in Westminster for months.

The biggest problem facing him is that there are no good options. Sunak is down about 20 points in the opinion polls and that deficit has not budged all year.

The economy is bleak, and there is a feeling among his associates that waiting until October or November will give it time to stabilize.

But Sunak, on the other hand, has invested much of his political capital in a pledge to block small boats allowing asylum seekers to cross to the UK. He recently passed controversial legislation to address some claims in Rwanda, but no one has yet been deported and further legal challenges may await the plan.

Meanwhile, numerous trips across the English Channel in the warmer summer are expected to harm a key pillar of his campaign message.

Ultimately, hours after rare good economic news and a healthy monthly decline in the inflation rate, Sunak decided that Wednesday was the least bad time to pull the trigger.

The almost universal expectation is that Sunak's Conservatives will lose the election.

Labor has been leading the general election polls since late 2021, and that lead has been huge throughout Sunak's term as chancellor. On average it's about 20 points higher, with the Conservatives often closer to third-party challengers such as Reform and the Liberal Democrats than to Labor.

Translated into projections of parliamentary seats, these figures would mean a comfortable Labor win, or a Labor victory so big that the Conservatives would almost be wiped out.

The Conservative brand has been damaged by Partygate and other scandals that led to the downfall of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the turbulent six-week term of his successor Liz Truss, whose financial problems have thrown markets into turmoil. damaged due to

But for Sunak's team, deeper numbers provide some comfort. Although Keir Starmer is ahead of Sunak in opinion polls on who would make a better prime minister, that lead is much smaller than the overall party vote gap, which suggests Sunak will try to keep the focus on a me versus that message.

Some polling experts have suggested that recent local elections could give Labor a slimmer victory than opinion polls suggest, but it is very difficult to extrapolate a national forecast from local votes in only a few areas.

Sunak may also take encouragement from an unexpected source. Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing former Labor leader who went into the 2017 general election facing a similar deficit and eventually forced a parliament that handed Theresa May a narrow defeat.

Despite this, Sunak has been unable to sway the opinion polls in his favor since becoming leader. He has just six weeks left to claim a stunning upset victory.

Party leaders have already started campaigning, but parliament has had a few days to finalize pressing issues before it is officially dissolved 25 days before polling day.

If that happens, the National Assembly formed in the 2019 general election will no longer exist, and all current members of the National Assembly will no longer be members of the National Assembly.

Sunak's government will continue to run the country, albeit in a skeletal form.

A key priority for any party is to travel the country for several weeks, capturing party leaders knocking on doors, standing in hi-vis jackets and meeting the public.

A series of TV debates featuring Sunak and Starmer going head-to-head is also likely to be organised.

Then, on Thursday 4 July, Britons will go to the polls from 7am to 10pm local time, with votes counted as soon as the polls close. Winners are usually declared in the early hours of Friday morning.

Rishi Sunak's rival for power is Labor leader Keir Starmer, who is very likely to be named Britain's new prime minister in July.

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who served as Britain's highest-ranking prosecutor at the time, entered politics late in life. He became a Labor MP in 2015 and became leader of the party less than five years after serving as shadow Brexit minister during Britain's long-awaited exit from the European Union.

Starmer inherits a party reeling from its worst election defeat in generations, but has brought about a cultural overhaul that has kept former leader Jeremy Corbyn's left-wing supporters in check and publicly apologized for the long-running anti-Semitism scandal that has tainted support groups. I prioritized it. open.

He has attempted to take over Britain's political centre, and is portrayed by his supporters as a principled and serious leader focused on solving the systemic problems facing the country. But his opponents on both the left and right of his own party say he lacks charisma and ideas and accuse him of failing to present an ambitious and broad vision for the country.

Who else is standing?

Only Sunak or Starmer have a realistic chance of becoming prime minister, but their plans could be stymied by a number of smaller parties.

Sunak is particularly vulnerable to the success of the Reform Party, a right-wing group that is seeking to outpace him on immigration, and the Liberal Democrats, a centrist pro-European group that has taken away support from the Conservatives in wealthy areas of southern England.

Given Labor's lead in the polls, Starmer is better equipped to take the fight to other groups. North of the border, he will seek to capitalize on a dark period in the party's recent history, having replaced two leaders in just one year, ending a generation of dominance at the ballot box by the Scottish National Party (SNP).

But he will have to keep in mind the Green Party, which has challenged him from the left and has attracted some young liberal votes as a result.

There was also evidence in recent local elections that Labor's stance on Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip has harmed the party in the Muslim-majority region.

In the UK, voters do not directly elect the Prime Minister. Instead, they elect members of parliament (MPs) to represent their constituencies.

The leader of the party that wins a majority of Britain's 650 constituencies automatically becomes prime minister and can form a government. This means that 326 is the magic number for the overall majority.

Without a majority, help must be sought elsewhere. After the results of the 2017 presidential election, we will have to rule as a minority government, like Theresa May, or form a coalition like David Cameron after 2010.

The monarch plays an important role. King Charles III must approve the formation of a government, the decision to hold elections and the dissolution of parliament. However, this is only a formal role. The King will not contradict the Prime Minister or ignore the election results.

The answer to that question will go some way in determining the winner of the night.

Labor is framing the election as a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule, seeking to tap into public fatigue with a party that has produced five prime ministers during that period and oversaw Brexit, a shaky economy and a series of tawdry scandals. I will do it.

In particular, Starmer will have a lot to say about the cost of living for British families and the country's overstaffing and over-treatment situation.

Sunak, by contrast, will want his pledge to Stop the Boats to focus on migration. But his flagship Rwandan policy at least became law. And he will try to convince voters that the economy has reached a turning point and that changes in governance cannot be risked.

Early signs also show he is attempting to center the leadership issue in voters' minds, highlighting his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Covid-19 pandemic and criticizing Starmus' record in his first speech.

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