Sunak attempts to re-frame UK election with focus on security

Rishi Sunak will pitch himself as the best candidate to achieve a “more secure future” for Britain in a political speech designed to re-capture the narrative ahead of the U.K. general election, just over a week after his party suffered heavy losses in local votes.

The prime minister will tell an audience in London on Monday that the country “stands at a crossroads” when voters cast their ballots “later this year” — re-affirming that the election will be called in 2024 rather than in January 2025, the latest it can be held.

“I have bold ideas that can change our society for the better, and restore people’s confidence and pride in our country,” he will say, according to advance excerpts of the speech. “I’m convinced that the next few years will be some of the most dangerous yet most transformational our country has ever known.”

Sunak is trying to forge a dividing line between his ruling Conservative party — which last month promised to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 — and opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer who’s leading by up to 30 points in polls. While Starmer was the first to say he would raise defense spending to 2.5%, he didn’t put a timeline on the pledge.

Starmer, meanwhile, will capitalize on winning 11 mayoralties earlier this month by hosting the first meeting of Labour’s mayors in the West Midlands since the local elections. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and deputy leader Angela Rayner will join him for discussions on creating 10-year local growth proposals in each region designed to boost economic expansion throughout the U.K.

A week after losing more than half of the council seats they were defending, as well as key mayoral races, Sunak’s premiership was dealt a further blow when Tory MP Natalie Elphicke defected to the Labour Party and endorsed Starmer’s migration plan.

Sunak was “letting this country down” by not tackling rising immigration, Elphicke said. Her Dover and Deal constituency in southeast England is on the front line of one of Sunak’s key promises to stop migrants arriving in small boats across the English Channel.

Sunak on Monday will frame the increase in asylum seekers in the U.K. as part of a global immigration issue. He will warn that more will change in the next five years than in the last 30 and that the nation’s security needs safeguarding.

“How we act in the face of these changes – not only to keep people safe and secure but to realize the opportunities too – will determine whether or not Britain will succeed in the years to come,” Sunak will say. “This is the choice facing the country.”