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In the stuffy conference room of a right-wing think tank last week, Rishi Sunak soft-launched his election campaign, before he’d even announced the date.
“The choice at the next election is: who do you trust to keep you safe?” the Conservative PM asked the country - via the medium of his pals at Policy Exchange. Despite using an official Government lectern, the speech was dripping with party-political invective against Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour party.
Rishi Sunak appears set to fight this election on the UK’s security, and on future stability – presumably because he hasn’t been able to deliver it in the past.
But exclusive polling for Byline Times by independent researchers WeThink today reveals that, if he stakes his political future on security, he’s already lost. This may explain why the embattled Conservative leader is presenting himself as the “underdog” in this election, despite his party being the dominant political force of the past century, and holding the reins of power for the past 14 years.
40% of voters believe Keir Starmer “would be best at keeping the UK safe”, compared to just 25% of those who believe the same for Rishi Sunak. Keir Starmer leads on safety for every age group up to age 65, typically by a factor of two to one.
However, those aged over 75 back Sunak over Starmer on the issue by 55% to 25%, which will offer a tiny flicker of hope for the current PM given that older voters typically turn out in higher numbers than the young.
Sunak has repeatedly slammed Labour on issues of security, viewing it as a weak spot. But further WeThink polling for Byline Times this month shows that 70% of voters do not believe Sunak’s warnings that Labour would put the UK at risk from Vladimir Putin.
The deluge of stories about dodgy donations to the Conservatives from those with links to Russia will not have helped, nor that of Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson appointing the son of a former KGB agent to the House of Lords.
Our democratic institutions have come under proven attack under this Government – but there has been little to no action to tighten up our political rules to keep them safe.
As the Electoral Commission, our official elections watchdog, told a parliamentary committee recently: “We witnessed first-hand the threat that cyber-attacks pose to UK democratic institutions, when a complex attack took place on the Commission’s systems in 2021/22.” This hack involved millions of voters’ information.
But what else has been hit? “We have recommended for some time that the controls around political donations should be strengthened to improve the resilience of the UK political system against foreign influence,” the Electoral Commission said. Action came there none.
Strikingly, political parties remain some of the only major organisations in the UK that aren’t required to carry out money-laundering checks when they receive big wads of cash. “Political parties and non-party campaigners should be required to carry out risk assessments and enhanced due diligence checks to ensure they know where donations have come from,” said the watchdog recently, for the thousandth time. Ignored, once more.
Instead, ministers have prioritised handing votes and the power to donate to millions of Brits living overseas – while clamping down on the right to vote at home through mandatory photo ID.
Other key attack lines from the Conservatives will focus on whether Labour can be trusted on the economy. Again, Starmer now leads over Sunak by 39% to 27%, a 12 point gap that will be difficult to close in six weeks.
And then there’s an obvious, yet equally damning, fact for Sunak’s prospects: Starmer leads Sunak in terms of who voters would “prefer to be Prime Minister after the general election” by 22 percentage points – 44% to 22%.
Perhaps Sunak is the underdog by this narrow metric. Just one with a net family wealth of £651m, and who may have his sights set beyond the UK when this is all over.
Josiah Mortimer is Byline Times’ Chief Reporter. He leads the outlet’s VoteWatch project, which has now been relaunched for the General Election.
If you ‘see something that doesn’t look right’ during this election campaign - from misleading leaflets, to dodgy donations or disinformation, get in touch: josiah@bylinetimes.com (@josiahmortimer on X / @josiah.mortimer on Threads)
Methodology: 1,242 adults in Great Britain were polled online in the lead up to 24th May 2024. Results were weighted to ensure they were representative of the population.
Whatever sunak talks about invariably the opposite happens