Labour urges UK election after Tory losses

AFP | New Delhi     

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Britain’s Labour yesterday urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to call a general election after the opposition party made significant gains in English polls that included a seat in parliament.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the party’s parliament seat win in Blackpool South in northwest England sent a clear message to Sunak, who has until late January next year to call and then hold a nationwide vote.

“Blackpool speaks for the whole country in saying, ‘We have had enough now, after 14 years of failure, 14 years of decline, we want to turn the page and start afresh with Labour’,” he said on a visit to congratulate the new MP there, Chris Webb.

Labour, out of power since 2010 and trounced by Boris Johnson’s Tories at the last general election in 2019, won the constituency with a 26-percent swing -- the third-largest margin from the Tories to Labour at a by-election since World War II.

The win came as early results showed Labour were inflicting heavy losses on the Conservatives in local contests that took place across England on Thursday.

Sunak conceded that it was “disappointing” to have lost dozens of councillors so far but said many results were still to be announced.