The United Kingdom will hold its first national election in almost five years on Thursday, with opinion polls suggesting that Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks Conservative Party will be punished for failing to deliver on promises made during 14 years in power.
The centre-right Conservatives took power during the depths of the global financial crisis and have won three more elections since then. But those years have been marked by a sluggish economy, declining public services and a series of scandals, making the Tories, as they are commonly known, easy targets for critics on the left and right.
The Labour Party, which leans to the left, is far ahead in most opinion polls after focusing its campaign on a single word: Change.
But the Tories face other challenges as well. The new Reform Party is siphoning off votes from the rightwing of the Conservatives after criticizing the Tory leadership for failing to control immigration.
How will the election work? People throughout the United Kingdom will elect all 650 members of the House of Commons, one for each local constituency. There are no primaries or run-offs, just a single round of voting on July 4.
