Can Sunak Win the Next Election?

Jacob Dawson analyses the electoral fate of

Labour

Dawson

Since the Conservatives were swept to power in 2019 with a 80 seat majority they have experienced setbacks, scandals, a pandemic and a recession which has seen Rishi Sunak become prime minister as well as expend all the political capital they gathered in 2019. After the dramatic exit of Liz Truss from Downing Street in October 2022, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has embarked on a mission to reunify the fractured Conservative party in preparation for 2024.

It is a common theme in electoral politics that divided parties and coalitions do not win elections. Sunak, in order to turn around the odds, will somehow need to reconcile all the internal Conservative party factions while also producing a manifes- to strong enough to secure not only traditional Tory voters but also swing voters who make up the red wall seats which the Conservatives won in 2019. Mainstream political polling seems to suggest this to be the case, according to YouGov polling from the 30th of January, up to 70% of UK adults who were polled did not approve of the current government. This in turn has seen record high polling for Starmer’s Labour who earlier in 2020-2021 were trailing Johnson's Conservatives in the polls. This is nowhere to been seen now where the current voting intention polling by YouGov puts Labour at 45 points compared to the Tories 26.

To have any real chance of putting up a successful campaign in 2024, Sunak will have to work night and day to restore the trust of traditional Tory voters concentrated in the south of England. High inflation, strikes, the housing crisis and Brexit