British head to polls today
The British are voting Thursday in a national election that few expected — and fewer wanted — after a campaign no party can say hasgone to plan.
The Conservative government had intended to focus on Britain’s departure from the European Union, the opposition Labour Party on the economy. But the recent terror attacks in Manchester and London forced both to abandontheir strategies. The days leading up to the vote have been dominatedby security concerns.
In the first attack, at the end of a
abandon their strategies. The days leading up to the vote have been dominated by securityconcerns.
Inthe first attack, at the end of a concert in Manchester two weeks ago, suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed 22 people, many of them children. Abedi was born in the U.K. to Libyan parents and had recently returned from Libya. Police are investigating if he was part of a wider networkof Islamic radicals.
The second incident, in the capital on Saturday, left eight dead and many more injured. Somewere hit by a van driven into pedestrians on London Bridge. More died when three men emerged from the vehicle and rampaged through pubs and restaurants stabbing victims and shouting “Thisis for Allah.”
Eightminutes after the first call to emergency services, police fatally shot the attackers. Politicians of all parties were quick to praise the police response. But after a brief suspension of electioneering, Labourwent on the offensive.
Party leader Jeremy Corbyn denounced budget cuts that have seen a nationwide drop of 20,000 in police numbers since the Conservatives took office in 2010. If elected, he said, his party would recruit an additional 10,000 officers. Mr. Corbyn’s attack was potentially damaging for Theresa May. Before succeedingDavid Cameron as prime minister last year, she was the cabinet minister responsiblefor policing.
At a news conference on Monday, the prime minister argued “we have protected counterterrorism budgets,” and went on to criticize Mr. Corbyn for voting against anti-terrorlegislation.
Ms. May revived the Tory claim that she offers stability in contrast to the inexperiencedMr. Corbyn.
The prime minister’s efforts to shift debate away from her role in reducing police numbers were aided by revelations about the perpetrators ofthe London Bridge attack.
All three were foreign-born residents of the U.K. One, Khuram Butt, originally from Pakistan, was known to the security services as a supporter of a now-jailed hate preacher. He had even appeared in a TV documentary, “TheJihadis Next Door.”
Another, Youssef Zaghba, described as Italian-Moroccan, entered Britain from Italy despite being on a terror watch list after attempting to travelto Syria.
The revelations led to questions about why these men were not being monitored closely by the authorities in the U.K. They also prompted Ms. May to take the unusual step of announcing new antiterror measures on the last dayof the campaign.
Most strikingly, Ms. May promises to change human rights laws if they hinder imposing tougher security measures. These would include deporting more foreign-born suspects and tightening restrictions on those suspected of terrorist connections but who have not been charged withany crime.
This prompted opposition criticism that the prime minister’s plans were meant to make up for her flagging electioncampaign.
The Conservative Party has seen a steady decline in opinion poll ratings since Ms. May called the snap election seven weeks ago — three years early — in a bid to boost the Conservative majority in Parliament, which she says willstrengthen Britain’s hand indivorce talks with the EU. A lead of more than 20 points over Labour has dwindled to an average of 7 points, and the prime minister’s reputation has taken a battering in the process.
Even some Conservativeleaning newspapers and MPs criticizedthe prime minister’s “robotic” repetition of a narrow range of sound bites. For the first month of electioneering, she avoided impromptu meetings with voters and was rarely available to the press. Reversing a key policy on elder care four days after it was announced undermined her self-descriptionas “strong and stable.” Declining to take part in a debate with the other party leaders proved equally damaging.
Mr. Corbyn started the campaign at a low ebb. Long an outsider on the far left of his own party, he gained from the enhanced platform any candidateenjoys in the run-up to an election. Like Sen. Bernie Sanders in the U.S. last year, the 68-year-old Mr. Corbyn proved popular with young voters. Opinion polls suggest if those under 25 vote in large numbers, the Conservatives will be denied the large majority Ms. May was countingon.
But historically, participation by younger voters has been falling. And many of the students who have flocked to Mr. Corbyn’s side live in Parliamentary seats already safelyin Labour’s hands.
If Ms. May does not win a majority of 40 to 50 seats, she mayprove to be vulnerable inside her party. If she loses badly and there is a hung Parliament, all bets are seen as off.
Most pollsters say the Conservatives are still headed for a solid victory of about 50 seats, but some experts are preparing for the establishment of a minority, CorbynledLabour government.
Claire Bolderson is a British journalist and documentary maker with more than 25 years of experience at the BBC. She wrote this for the Block News Alliance, which consists of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed.