The United Kingdom is preparing to celebrate this Thursday a general election that polls suggest will return power to Labour After 14 years of conservative governments, while Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is trying hard to play down a defeat that polls predict will be devastating.

More than 45 million citizens in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the four nations that make up the United Kingdom, are called to the polls to vote on the composition of the 650-seat House of Commons (lower) of Parliament. Polling stations opened their doors at 7:00 a.m. local time on Thursday. (06:00 GMT), in a session that will last until 22:00 local time (21:00 GMT).

Politicians are making a final effort on Wednesday to convince the undecided, but polls on voting intentions are They take the victory of the Labor Party for granted of Keir Starmer and they also glimpse that this formation can make history by achieving an absolute majority never seen before in the country. The British vote by the single-member majority system to elect the composition of the House of Commons (lower) of Parliament, made up of 650 seats.

Keir Starmer has called this Thursday vote for “change” while Sunak to avoid a Labour “supermajority”. Party leaders have posted on their social media accounts X to mark the opening of polling stations. “Change. You can vote for it today,” Starmer wrote, while Sunak stressed “stopping the Labour supermajority.”

The leader of the party Reform UKof populist Nigel Farage, has claimed “vote with your heart” and “vote today for real change. Vote Reform UK.” Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has said that “vote SNP for achieve independencerejoin the European Union” and to “protect free tuition” (at universities in Scotland).

More seats than those obtained in 1997

According to a recent survey by the firm Survation, Labour could win more seats than those obtained in 1997, when the party was led by Tony Blair. The firm, which interviewed 34,558 respondents online and by telephone, predicted a Labour victory of more than 418 seats – the number won under Blair.

Under the country’s single-member majoritarian electoral system, Labour will take power without having to form a coalition if it reaches the stated number: 326 seatsone more than the other parties will obtain. During the electoral campaign that ends today, since there is no day of reflection in the United Kingdom, the Labour Party has repeated the word “change” to get the country out of its economic and social stagnation, due to the lack of growth, the endless waiting lists for health care, the lack of affordable housing, the increase in crime or the requests from different sectors for better salaries.

The Tories, for their part, are arriving at this election, called by Sunak on 22 May, with a lot of wear and tear behind them, after the marathon Brexit negotiationsthe pandemic, the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, the scandals that plagued Boris Johnson’s administration – in power between 2019 and 2022 – due to “partygate” (the parties in Downing Street during Covid), but above all due to the crisis in the cost of living and the increase in immigration – both legal and illegal.

Conservatives admit defeat

As polls are rarely wrong in the UK, many Conservatives They have already admitted defeat, despite Sunak insisting he will fight to the end for every vote. One of his most loyal ministers, the Minister for Work and Pensions, Mel Stride, anticipated this fall today by stating that Labour is likely to obtain “the largest majority that any party has ever achieved”.

“I have accepted the polls as they stand at this time, “And it seems very unlikely that they are very wrong, because they have been consistently in the same place for some time, (so) it is very likely that tomorrow we will find ourselves with the largest majority that any party has ever achieved,” the minister added.

“If you look at the polls, it’sIt is quite clear that the Labour Party is heading for a landslide victory and extraordinary on a level that has probably never been seen before,” he acknowledged. The last few chaotic years due to internal struggles within the Conservative Party, which in just three years had three different prime ministers (Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak), favoured the rise of the right-wing populist party Reform UK, led by the controversial Nigel Farage. This anti-immigration and anti-European politician assures that the Conservatives are “finished” and that the real opposition will be led by Reform UK.