With just one day to go until the U.K. election, the candidates actually running to lead Britain were overshadowed by a blast from the past: former PM Boris Johnson.
Johnson made a surprise appearance at a campaign rally in Chelsea for Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday night, taking aim at Labour Leader Keir Starmer and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage — and providing Tory spirits with a much-needed boost. But Johnson’s rock-star reception from the assembled party activists also provided an uncomfortable reality check for Sunak, whose appearance was well and truly overshadowed.
The prime minister will stay in the southeast for the final morning of the campaign today, visiting a Hampshire school and other locations, giving an interview to This Morning (during which he might be asked about comments in today’s Telegraph by his ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman that the election is “over”) and speaking at a final campaign rally at 8 p.m. Tanya Gold has a must-read piece out for POLITICO today which reads as a political obituary for Sunak.
Starmer, meanwhile, will be warmed by Tuesday night’s MRP poll from Survation, which put the Tories on just 64 seats and Labour on a mind-blowing 484, as he makes a final dash to Scotland, Wales and the West Midlands.
Follow all the action below with the POLITICO team.
