Rishi Sunak tore into Keir Starmer over immigration and his ‘dishonesty’ on tax tonight as he desperately struggles to avert a Tory meltdown.
The PM accused Keir Starmer of trying to trick Brits as they went head-to-head on BBC One barely a week before the country casts their ballots.
The clashes became so heated that, as Mr Sunak gave his closing statement repeating his claim that Labour would hike families’ taxes by £2,000, Sir Keir could be heard shouting ‘that’s a lie’.
The two rivals did not appear to shake hands afterwards as they thanked presenter Mishal Husain.
However, the unedifying squabbling did not seem to impress the audience, with one infuriated man asking: ‘Are you two seriously the best we have got to be the next PM of our great country?’
A snap YouGov poll found that TV viewers thought they fought each other to a standstill, splitting 50-50 on who had won.
Mr Sunak kicked off the exchanges by fending off a question about Tories being caught up in the election betting scandal, while Sir Keir jibed that the premier had been fined for Partygate rule breaches.
The PM hit back: ‘Keir Starmer talks about leadership and politics… I think leadership means being straight with people…
‘He’s not being honest with everyone about his plans to raise their taxes.’
He pointed to a recording of shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones admitting that Labour’s Net Zero goals will cost ‘hundreds of billions’ of pounds.
Mr Sunak acknowledged that the public was ‘frustrated’ with him and his party, but warned that Labour would let Channel migrants ‘out on our streets’, and ditching the Rwanda scheme would mean people smugglers would ‘need a bigger boat’.
Mr Sunak was also clapped as he said Sir Keir ‘wanted to be in charge’ but had ‘got nothing to say about what you would do about it’.
But Sir Keir received his own round of applause as he complained that Mr Sunak kept interrupting him, saying if he ‘listened’ more he wouldn’t be seen as so ‘out of touch’.
He said the Tories had raised tax ’26 times’ and tagged him ‘Liz Truss mark two’.
The Labour leader struggled as he was grilled on whether he would provide legal protection for women-only spaces, after one of his frontbenchers suggested pre-op trans women should use women’s toilets.
JK Rowling responded on social media by hinting that Sir Keir had lost her vote.
The Harry Potter author posted: ‘It’s very important that we protect women’s spaces… but men can also be women, says the Labour leader.
‘My postal vote is literally lying next to me. I wanted to wait to hear what @KeirStarmer said tonight to fill it in.’
The primetime clash at Nottingham Trent University – which was dogged by noises from pro-Palestinian protesters outside – had been viewed as Mr Sunak’s last major opportunity to revive his fortunes after a nightmare election campaign.
However, the scale of the challenge for the premier was underlined earlier this evening, with more grim mega-polls showing the Tories on track to get smashed – and one even putting them in third behind the Lib Dems.
As another milestone was passed on the general election battle:
Sir Keir accused Mr Sunak of being ‘bullied’ into responding to the betting allegations, after it took weeks for the Conservatives to withdraw support for two candidates.
The Labour leader said: ‘You have to lead from the front on issues like this. I think that in the last 14 years politics has become too much about self entitlement, and MPs thinking about what they could get for themselves.’
Sunak ‘bullied’ in Gamblegate response
Sir Keir accused his opponent of being bullied into responding to the unfolding scandal about Tory candidates allegedly betting on the timing of the General Election.
He contrasted his swift response when Labour candidate Kevin Craig was revealed to have bet against his own victory, with that of the Prime Minister.
‘What I did when one of my team was alleged to have been involved and investigated by the Gambling Commission, they were suspended within minutes, because I knew it made it really important to be swift, the Prime Minister delayed and delayed and delayed until eventually he was bullied into taking action,’ the Labour leader said.
In response, Mr Sunak said: ‘It was important to me that given the seriousness and the sensitivity of the matters at hand that they were dealt with properly, and that’s what I’ve done.’
Out of touch?
Mr Sunak also faced accusations of being out of touch with the public, after one testy exchange with Sir Keir.
The Prime Minister interrupted the Labour leader several times as he answered a question from a member of the audience.
But Sir Keir hit back, saying: ‘If you listen to the people in the audience, across the country, a bit more often you might not be so out of touch.’
His response was met with a round of applause.
Starmer ‘taking people for fools’ on migration
The Labour leader was however unable to provide a simple answer on how he would deal with the migrant crisis.
‘What will you do with them?’ Mr Sunak repeatedly asked as Sir Keir criticised the Rwanda plan.
The Labour leader claimed that currently 100% of illegal migrants ‘effectively’ received asylum because they were all placed in hotels while on the migration system backlog, and emphasised the need for processing.
The migrants are coming from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan, Mr Sunak responded.
‘Will you sit down with the Ayatollahs? Are you going to try to do a deal with the Taliban? It’s completely nonsensical – you are taking people for fools,’ he added.
Shadows of Truss and Corbyn
Sir Keir sought to damage Mr Sunak’s credibility by suggesting he had rowed in behind short-lived premier Liz Truss’s economic agenda.
The Prime Minister claimed he had warned about the damage of Ms Truss’s plans, but Sir Keir said he then accepted them ‘in the next breath’.
Husain then stepped in, saying: ‘Hang on, you know what it is like to fall in behind a leader of your party,’ in a reference to Sir Keir’s time serving under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The noise outside
A protest outside the Nottingham Trent University building where the debate was held could be heard within the hall and was picked up on the audio of the broadcast.
BBC journalist Husain addressed it at one point early in the debate, to alert the audience to what was happening, and described the protest as another part of the UK’s democracy.
Pro-Palestine protesters were among those demonstrating outside the venue, including a group called Nottingham Solidarity Group, who confirmed their attendance on X, formerly Twitter.
Tax Check UK
The Conservative Party rebranded its X account to ‘Tax Check UK’ ahead of the debate, and pumped out a steady stream of claims about how Labour’s plans would impact the taxes voters would pay.
This included claims of a ‘retirement tax’, as well as sharing an image of the often referred to letter that Labour former Treasury minister Liam Byrne left when the party last exited government joking there was ‘no money left’.
As the programme ended, Tory leader Mr Sunak also returned to the disputed claim that Labour’s policies will cost families an extra £2,000 in tax.
Sir Keir hit back: ‘That is a lie. He’s been told not to repeat that lie and he has just done it.’
The best to run the country?
One audience member asked both party leaders: ‘Are you two really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?’
Sir Keir said he ‘wasn’t surprised’ by the question as the country is in ‘such a state’.
The man later told the BBC he was ‘disappointed’ with the leaders’ responses to his question.
Gender rights
Both party leaders committed to protecting women’s rights to single-sex spaces, regardless of whether someone has a gender recognition certificate.
But Sir Keir feathered his answer, adding that there are ‘a small number of people who are born into a gender that they don’t identify with’.
He said: ‘I will treat them, as I treat all human beings, with dignity and respect.’
He added: ‘The instinct of these people to think the first thing they should do is try to make money, that was the wrong instinct, and we have to change that.’
Sir Keir continued: ‘What I did, when one of my team was alleged to have been involved and investigated by the Gambling Commission, they were suspended within minutes, because I knew it made it really important to be swift, the Prime Minister delayed and delayed and delayed until eventually he was bullied into taking off.’
Mr Sunak said: ‘It was important to me, that given the seriousness and the sensitivity of the matters at hand that they were dealt with properly, and that’s what I’ve done.’
Launching another salvo on immigration, Mr Sunak said: ‘The Rwanda plan is a deterrent, you just have to listen to what the illegal migrants themselves are saying, one of them just said ‘most of us are still in France due to the fear we have about Rwanda’.
‘Another one said ‘I won’t cross the Channel until the Rwanda plan is destroyed’. If Labour win, the people smugglers are going to need a bigger boat. Don’t surrender our borders to the Labour Party.’
Sir Keir replied: ‘Record numbers coming across the Channel and he says it’s a deterrent, there are a few hundred that will go on a flight to Rwanda, a huge expense to taxpayers. There are tens of thousands, 15,000 people have come since Rishi Sunak has been Prime Minister.’
After audience member Robert Blackstock asked ‘are you two really the best we’ve got’, the Labour leader said: ‘I’m not surprised after 14 years of this that people feel this way because the country is in such a state.
‘They’ve had loads of promises made in the last election about what will happen which haven’t been delivered on, that does beat the hope out of people.
‘The very first question was about integrity in politics, and again people haven’t seen that integrity – they’ve had Partygate, they’ve had breach of Covid rules, you’ve had the contracts for Covid – the instinct of some people to think the first thing in Covid i’m going to do is try to make money.
‘So, this is an opportunity to restore that hope. I don’t think we can do that by making sort of grand promises of things that can’t be delivered.’
Rather, he said, it’s ‘the ordinary hope of getting on yourself, getting on for your family, getting on for your community, your country. It has to be rooted, if we’re going to restore hope in my view, in returning politics to service, the sense that you come into politics to serve’.
Both committed to protecting women’s rights to single-sex spaces, regardless of whether someone has a gender recognition certificate.
Mr Sunak said: ‘Yes, unequivocally yes. And we will do that by changing the law, so that the old Equalities Act recognises that sex means biological sex.’
But Sir Keir feathered his answer, adding: ‘What I will also say is that I do recognise that there are a small number of people who are born into a gender that they don’t identify with, and I will treat them, as I treat all human beings, with dignity and respect.’
Sir Keir received applause and whoops from the audience, before continuing: ‘I’ll tell you for why, because if you don’t, we end up with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom standing in Parliament making an anti-trans joke in front of the mother of a murdered trans teenager.’
Mr Sunak replied: ‘That’s not what I did, I was pointing out that you’ve changed your mind on this question multiple times.’
The tetchy rowing continued right to the end. In his closing statement Mr Sunak said: ‘I understand why you’re frustrated with our party, with me, I get it. But this is not a by-election, it’s a choice with profound consequences for you and our country. And before you make that choice, think what a Labour government would mean.
‘Can you afford to pay at least £2,000 more in tax? And why won’t Keir Starmer be straight with you about what he wants to do? And if you’re not certain about Labour, don’t surrender to them, don’t vote for any other party, vote Conservative.’
The Labour leader could be heard protesting as he spoke, and in his own parting shot he said: ‘That is a lie, he’s been told not to repeat that lie and he’s just done it.’
He added: ‘My message to you is simple: if you want your NHS back, you have to vote for it. If you want a growing economy, you have to vote for it.
‘If you want more police on our streets or teachers in our schools, you have to vote for it. If you want to end 14 years of chaos … then that power is in your hands, on July the 4th, vote change, vote Labour.’
Mr Sunak is desperately trying to change his fortunes as the election betting scandal continues to rage.
He has also struggled to shake off the D-Day debacle.
Meanwhile, Tories fear that Reform will split the right-wing vote next week, opening the door for Labour to rack up seats.
Allies of the PM hope that messages about the danger of a Labour ‘supermajority’ is starting to hit home, while there have been tentative signs that Mr Farage’s surge might have peaked after he controversially claimed the West ‘provoked’ Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
We Think research conducted using the so-called MRP methodology suggested Labour could get a majority of 280 – the biggest in modern political history.
That poll saw the Conservatives reduced to just 76 MPs.
But a Find Out Now survey carried out with Electoral Calculus projected an even more dramatic outcome. It found the Tories could be slashed to just 60 seats, behind the Lib Dems with 71.
In that scenario, the Conservatives would not be the official opposition and Nigel Farage’s Reform would have 18 seats.
MRPs are now widely regarded as ‘gold standard’ in the polling industry, but they have been suggesting widely differing outcomes depending on assumptions such as likelihood to vote. They also take a longer period to conduct, meaning some of the research dates back weeks.
The enormous win for Sir Keir is being predicted despite signs that he is deeply unpopular with Brits.
Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus said they had ‘calibrated’ results of their own polling to ‘match the average of recent national polls’, after it suggested the Tories were two points behind Reform.
The overall figures in that MRP are for a Labour landslide with a majority of 250 seats. That would be bigger than Tony Blair’s win, and only exceeded by the 1931 result.
The Conservatives’ tally would be the worst since at least 1900 – before universal suffrage.
Mr Sunak would be among a swathe of senior ministers to lose their own seats.
Meanwhile, Reform would pick up 18, with Mr Farage finally entering Parliament alongside Richard Tice.
The wider picture is of apathy among the public. An Ipsos survey indicated that 75 per cent were dissatisfied with Rishi Sunak, with just 25 per cent satisfied.
But Sir Keir’s figures were not much better, with 52 per cent negative and 33 per cent positive about his performance.
Speaking to reporters after the debate, Home Secretary James Cleverly branded Sir Keir’s performance ‘weak and fragile’.
‘He refused over and over again to rule out tax rises, Keir Starmer is going to put taxes up,’ the Cabinet minister said.
‘He was asked explicitly, will you rule out putting up taxes for the first time ever on state pensioners? He refused to do so.’
Mr Cleverly added: ‘When pushed about honesty about tax, when pushed around honesty about the impact on the economy, Keir Starmer fumbled, fumbled and then tried to talk over the Prime Minister.’
The Home Secretary said both he and the PM ‘recognised there are frustrations’ among voters following the impact of the Covid crisis and the Ukraine war on the economy.
But he warned five years was a ‘long time’ to live under a Labour government.
Asked about Mr Sunak’s frequent use of the word ‘surrender’ during the debate, Mr Cleverly added: ‘What we’re saying is don’t give away, as a voter, do not give away your agency.
‘Because we know that Labour are looking to reopen freedom of movement by the back door in complete contravention to what the British people want.’
Quizzed about the leaked recording of Mr Jones saying Labour’s green plans will cost ‘hundreds of billions’ of pounds, Labour’s Pat McFadden – the party’s campaign chief – told reporters: ‘What Darren was clearly talking about was the level private sector investment that you can get if you have a government that’s willing to step up to the plate.
‘So rather than this being a problem for us, what it shows is that Rishi Sunak – having turned his back on any Government role in the green transition… has sacrificed the high level of private sector investment that’s waiting to come if they know there’s a willing partner in the government of the day.’
Mr McFadden said there was ‘only one prime minister in the room tonight, only one person really engaging with the audience and their problems’ as he praised Sir Keir’s performance.
Asked about Mr Blackstock bemoaning that Mr Sunak and Sir Keir are ‘the best we’ve got, ‘ Mr McFadden replied: ‘I’m very proud we’ve got Keir leading us into the election and we’ll see what voters’ verdict is on 4 July.’
Speaking himself after the debate, Mr Blackstock said he was left unconvinced by the answers he heard from both the PM and Labour leader.
‘I was disappointed with the response from both Rishi and Sir Keir,’ he told the BBC.
‘Neither of them seemed to want to say why they were good – if that makes any sense.
‘They were going on what they’d done in the past, they weren’t being positive.
‘For a PM, from my perspective, we want a personality, we want somebody we can recognise, we want somebody on the world stage that is going to project our Great Britain.
‘That’s what we want.’