Britain needs a “fresh start” and a “proper change of government” that can’t be achieved with another Conservative government, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has announced.
“The Conservatives have overseen 12 years of economic stagnation, declining public services and empty province. We don’t need to change the Tory at the top – we need a proper change of government,” Starmer tweeted Thursday.
The opposition leader accompanied the post with a short letter, in which he accused Johnson of having “always” been “unfit for office.”
“He has been responsible for lies, scandal and fraud on an industrial scale. And all those who have been complicit should be utterly ashamed. The Tory Party have inflicted chaos upon the country during the worst cost of living crisis in decades and they cannot now pretend they are the ones to sort it out,” Starmer wrote.
UK media reported earlier in the day that Johnson, who was initially defiant about relinquishing power over the Pincher sexual misconduct scandal, had agreed to resign as Conservative Party leader, and that he is expected to make a public statement on the matter sometime Thursday. Johnson wants to continue serving as prime minister until the fall, with a Tory leadership race expected to find a replacement in the summer, and a new PM to be in place by the time the Conservative Party conference kicks off in October, according to reports.
Johnson ruled out snap elections demanded by the Labour Party earlier this week.
“After all the sleaze, and all the failure, it’s clear that this Tory government is now collapsing. And Tory cabinet ministers have been cheerleaders for Johnson throughout this sorry saga. They backed him when he broke the law, they backed him when he lied, they backed him when he mocked the sacrifices of the British people. So they have been complicit as he has disgraced his office and let down his country,” Starmer told reporters on Tuesday.
The politician suggested that the Johnson’s ministers would have resigned months ago if they had “a shred of integrity” instead of waiting to do so until this week.
The Labour Party has been in opposition since 2010. National opinion polling showed Labour to have overtaken the Tories in December 2021, with the party leading the Conservatives 40 percent to 33 percent in a poll conducted last week, with the Liberal Democrats trailing heavily with 12 percent.
In the 2019 general elections, the Tories were able to increase the majority they got in the 2017 election, winning 365 of 650 seats in the House of Commons with 43.6 percent of the vote thanks to Britain’s first past the post electoral system, in which the candidate with the most votes (but not necessarily a majority) in a given constituency is declared the winner. Starmer, a centrist, replaced Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, from the party's left wing, in 2020 after the party's battering in the 2019 election, and amid unsubstantiated claims of 'antisemitism' against Mr. Corbyn.