Putin, Farage and pesky teens: 5 people the Tories blame for a Labour ‘supermajority’

LONDON — Britain’s Tories are on course for a crushing election defeat — but it’s not their fault, honest!

The governing party is battling for a fifth term after 14 years in power.

But, as it struggles to move the needle and turn around Labour’s thumping poll lead, it has taken to warning Brits that they’re about to hand a 20-year “supermajority” to big bad Labour Leader Keir Starmer.

POLITICO has been keeping an ear on the Conservative attack lines to see who the Tories are blaming for a potential Labour triumph — and who they’re not.

Teenagers

If Labour does win, it’s going to change the rules and hand over the keys of the country to pimple-faced TikTokers who hate Britain.

That’s the general thrust of the latest warnings from Conservative big beasts, who are keen to talk about Labour’s plan to lower the voting age.

Labour has actually promised to give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote in “all elections,” so there’s a chance this one sticks. Polling suggests the young are more likely to vote for left-wing parties.

In an interview with the Daily Mail Tuesday, embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accused Starmer of trying to “entrench his power” by lowering the voting age.

Immigrants

Sunak also tried another attack on for size as he pushed the message that Britain is heading for a one-party state ruled with an iron fist by Comrade Starmer.

Labour, he told the Mail, would likely give the vote to “immigrants, and all the rest” if Starmer is handed a “blank check” on July 4.

It’s hard to parse this one. To vote in a U.K. election, someone must currently be either a British citizen, a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. Immigrants in the U.K. can usually apply for British citizenship — granting them voting rights if successful — once they’ve been in the country for 12 months.

Labour’s manifesto contains nothing about extending the franchise to people awaiting decisions on their citizenship, and no frontbencher has spoken about such a plan at any point during the campaign.

But don’t let that stop you, guys!

Prisoners

Here’s a new one. Starmer’s socialist republic would apparently be propped up by Labour-supporting convicts who just can’t get enough of moderate NHS reform.

The usually mild-mannered Farming Minister Mark Spencer said Tuesday that Labour will “change the voting system” to give themselves a two-decade stint in power if they win the election.

He told Times Radio: “They’ll make sure that they give votes to 16 year olds. They’ve talked about giving votes to foreign nationals, to EU nationals.

“But also in the past, they’ve also talked about giving votes to prisoners. Of course, we could end up with a Labour government for 20 years if we get this wrong at this general election.”

It’s worth noting that Labour’s top team have not promised to give votes to prisoners as Spencer suggested. There’s no such proposal in their manifesto, and nobody has floated it on the campaign trail.

The Tories may be thinking of a 1996 book in which Starmer, then a lawyer and not a politician, warned that the “denial of voting rights to most convicted prisoners” comes close to breaching human rights standards.

He then, it is alleged, personally kicked down the door to Wandsworth Prison and screamed: “GO FORTH MY BROTHERS AND BUILD A TERRIBLE NEW EMPIRE OF CHAOS!”

Vladimir Putin

Look, how can the Conservatives be expected to win an election when they’ve had mad bad Vladimir Putin to contend with?

The Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine, you see, spiked energy prices and caused the inflation woes that led the Tories to the edge of the abyss.

It was a line trotted out by then-Tory chairman Greg Hands last year when the party got a kicking in local elections, and others have flirted with it since.

“Clearly, last year was a very difficult year for the whole country, for the whole party,” Hands told LBC. “After Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the spike in energy prices, the big rise in inflation. People are still dealing with the consequences of that.”

Asked if he was indeed blaming the Russian leader for the Tories losing control of Medway council in Kent, Hands said: “Well I’m saying the backdrop to these elections has not been the best.”

Voters must have had advance warning of Putin’s invasion but just not told anyone.

POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows Labour overtook the Tories back in November 2021, amid highly-damaging headlines about Covid rule-breaching parties in No.10 Downing Street. Swapping leaders twice and endlessly fighting in public didn’t seem to help, either.

Nigel Farage

Britain’s best-known right-wing Brexiteer has long haunted Tory dreams, but did you know he’s actually a Keir Starmer-loving pinko who wants to help them nationalize your grandmother?

Farage, who is posing a major challenge to the Tories on the right, unveiled his Reform UK manifesto Monday, and the Conservatives took he opportunity to bundle up all their attack lines into one neat, and definitely-not-terrified package.

Nigel Farage, who is posing a major challenge to the Tories on the right, unveiled his Reform UK manifesto Monday. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

“A vote for Reform risks delivering an unaccountable Labour majority,” a Tory spokesman said.

“That would hand Keir Starmer a blank check to raise your taxes, take no action on illegal immigration, and even rejoin the EU, with no way to stop him,” the spokesman went on.

Warming to the theme, the spokesperson added: “If you’re thinking about voting for Reform, and a generation under Labour scares you, there’s only one way to prevent it: vote Conservative.”

It’s certainly a take.

And here’s 6 people they aren’t blaming

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak … Former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss … Former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson … Conservative Campaign Chief Isaac Levido … Brexit referendum-calling former PM-turned-Foreign Secretary David Cameron.