When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this week he was unlikely to call a general election in Britain until the second half of the year, he was trying to quell feverish speculation that he could go to voters as early as the month of May. But in doing so, he presented another tantalizing prospect: Britain and the United States could hold elections within days or weeks of each other this fall.
The last time parliamentary and presidential elections coincided was in 1964, when Britain’s Labor Party ousted the long-ruling Conservatives in October, and less than a month later a Democratic president, Lyndon B .Johnson, swept aside a challenge from a right-wing party. Republican insurgent. The parallels with today are not lost on excited citizens of the British political class.
“This is already being rumored around the tables in London,” said Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to Washington and now a member of the House of Lords. Despite all the analysis fueled by the Côte du Rhône, Mr. Darroch conceded, “it is difficult to reach any conclusion on what this means”.
This is not to say that political diviners, amateur and professional, are not getting into it. Some argue that a victory by Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump over President Biden – or even the prospect of such a victory – would be so alarming that it would frighten British voters into sticking with the Conservative Party of Mr Sunak, as an argument. in search of predictability and continuity in an uncertain world.
Others say Labor leader Keir Starmer could win over voters by reminding them of the ideological kinship between the Conservatives and Mr Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in Britain. Mr. Trump praised Mr. Sunak last fall for saying he wanted to water down some of Britain’s ambitious climate goals. “I always knew Sunak was smart,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account.
Still others reject the idea that British voters would make decisions at the ballot box based on the political direction of another country, even one as close and influential as the United States. Analysts say the UK election will likely be decided by domestic concerns such as the cost of living crisis, mortgage rates, immigration and the crisis. state of disrepair of the National Health Service.
And yet even skeptics of any direct effect acknowledge that near-simultaneous elections could have repercussions on both sides of the Atlantic, given that Britain and the United States often appear to operate within the same political climate system . Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 is often seen as a canary in a coal mine. Mr. Trump’s victory the following November.
Already, the campaigns in both countries are beginning to echo each other, with heated debates on immigration; the integrity – or not – of political leaders; and social and cultural disputes, from racial justice to transgender rights. These themes will be amplified as they reverberate across the ocean, with the US election forming an oversized backdrop for the UK campaign.
“The US elections will receive considerable attention in the run-up to the UK elections,” said Ben Ansell, professor of comparative democratic institutions at the University of Oxford. “If conservatives run a culture war campaign and people are fed total populism because of Trump, it could backfire on them. »
Professor Ansell identified another risk in political synchronicity: it could amplify the damage of a disinformation campaign led by a hostile foreign power, such as efforts by Russian agents in Britain before the Brexit vote and in the United States before the 2016 presidential election. “It’s two for one,” he said, emphasizing that the two countries remain divided and vulnerable to such manipulation.
On Thursday, Mr Starmer called on Britons to move beyond the fury and divisions of the Brexit debates, promising “politics that weigh a little more heavily on all of our lives”. This is reminiscent of Mr. Biden’s call in his 2021 inaugural address to “join forces, stop the screaming, and lower the temperature.”
Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist who studied at Oxford and has advised Conservative Party officials, said he warned conservatives not to turn their campaign into a culture war. “It will get you votes, but it will destroy the electorate in the process,” he told them, noting that a campaign against “woke” issues had not helped unseat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Mr. Trump.
Mr Sunak has oscillated in recent months between a radical approach and a more centrist approach, with his party struggling to gain traction with voters. He currently trails Labor by 20 percentage points in most polls. While general elections are often held in the spring, Mr Sunak appears to be play for time in the hope that his fortunes will improve. This sparked criticism from Mr Starmer, who accused him of “squatting” at 10 Downing Street.
“I have a lot of things to do,” Mr Sunak told reporters on Thursday. He could wait until next January to hold a vote, although analysts say that is unlikely because campaigning over the Christmas holiday would likely alienate voters and discourage party activists from canvassing door to door .
With summer over for the same reason, Mr Sunak’s most likely options are October or November (Americans will vote on November 5). There are arguments in favor of choosing one month or the other, including the fact that party conferences are traditionally held in early October.
In October 1964, the Conservative government, led by Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly lost to the Labor Party led by Harold Wilson. Like Mr Douglas-Home, Mr Sunak has chaired a ruling party for more than 13 years. The following month, President Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, a far-right Republican senator from Arizona, who declared: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice.” »
Sixty years ago, the division between the two countries was greater than today, and the links between transatlantic elections were more tenuous than today. Mr. Trump, armed with a social media account and a penchant for making comments even more provocative than Mr. Goldwater’s, could easily disrupt the British campaign, analysts say.
And a Trump victory, they added, would pose a diabolical challenge to any of Britain’s future leaders. While Mr. Trump treated Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, as an ideological twin, he fell out bitterly with Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, and there was little reason, they said, to hope for less drama in a second Trump term. .
The biggest pre-election danger – far more likely for Mr Sunak than for Mr Starmer, given their politics – is that Mr Trump will give formal support, either while he is the Republican candidate or he was just elected president, Timothy said. Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London.
“Given the negative feelings of most Britons towards Trump,” Professor Bale said, “it is unlikely that such an endorsement would favor whichever of the two is unlucky enough to find favor with him”.