UK Election: Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet Ally, Intra-Party Rival Suella Braverman Appear To Concede Defeat

Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, and one of Rishi Sunak’s most loyal cabinet allies said rival Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, is heading for “the largest majority any party has ever achieved” in Thursday’s elections.

“I think we need to get through and out the other side of the General Election tomorrow, and then there will be plenty of time for us to do post-mortems and dissect what should or shouldn’t have been done in the past, or importantly where the party goes in the future,” Stride was quoted as saying by Times Radio.

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“We’re on the brink, probably, of the largest landslide we’ve ever seen in this country… What we have to have is some balance within our parliament. I think we’re right on the brink of a very perilous situation,” he further added.

A separate report by the AFP said the UK Labour party is 99 percent “certain” to secure more seats in Thursday’s general election than when it won a landslide victory in 1997.

The centre-left opposition party — out of power since 2010 — is predicted to claim 484 out of a total of 650 seats in what would be an unprecedented victory in modern British history, pollster Survation said.

Meanwhile, the right-wing ruling Conservatives and the centrist Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) are in a close race to come a distant second and form the country’s official opposition, it added.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman and a rival of Rishi Sunak from within the party in an op-ed for the Telegraph, urged her party members to “read the writing on the wall” and “prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition”.

“Thursday’s vote is now all about forming a strong enough opposition. One needs to read the writing on the wall: it’s over, and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition,” Braverman wrote.