Rishi Sunak’s unlikely bid to remain Prime Minister of Britain after July 4 appears to be falling apart after a week of crises: one he thought he had avoided, but the other was destined to go down as a historic, self-inflicted blunder.
The governing Conservatives were stunned on Monday when Brexit architect Nigel Farage said he would stand as a candidate for his Reform UK party in the election. Thinking Farage was out of the picture, Sunak’s Tories had developed a campaign strategy to mobilize the right-wing vote seduced by the reforms. Days after Farage’s accession, opinion polls show reforms are gaining ground – damaging Sunak’s chances of keeping Labor leader Keir Starmer from power.
But worse was to come. On Friday, Sunak compounded Tories’ misery when he was forced to apologize for leaving events in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day early. It was a political and diplomatic misstep that Tory campaign leaders fear will play into the hands of Farage, who has made a career of appealing to British patriotism dating back to the Second World War.
