PM warns Stoke voters will get 'the precise opposite' of what they want if they vote Reform
Rishi Sunak says Stoke-on-Trent voters will get 'the precise opposite' of what they want if they support Reform UK in the general election.
The Prime Minister urged Potteries residents concerned about immigration and high taxes to vote for Conservative candidates rather than Nigel Farage's party, in order to prevent a Labour 'supermajority'.
With just days to go until the general election, Mr Sunak paid his second campaign visit to Stoke-on-Trent, delivering a speech at the Well Pharmacy warehouse in Meir, within the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency, on Monday morning. Labour leader Keir Starmer also visited Stoke-on-Trent South last week, underlining the importance of the seat to both parties.
A decisive factor in Stoke-on-Trent South could be Reform UK tempting voters away from the Conservatives. A recent projection by pollsters Survation estimated support for Reform in the constituency at 16 per cent – with Labour leading the Tories in the seat by just 15 per cent.
Speaking after his speech and a Q&A session with staff, Mr Sunak claimed that a vote for Reform would just make a Labour victory more likely. He said: "Whilst of course, I understand people's frustrations, a vote for anyone who's not a conservative candidate is just going to mean that Keir Starmer is more likely to be in Number 10.
"So if you're someone who cares about controlling migration, we will deliver that for you. We've got a plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda so we have a deterrent, we're going to have a legal cap on legal migration voted on in Parliament. Keir Starmer isn't going to do any of those things.
"If you want your taxes cut, we're going to do that – he's going to whack them up. If you want a sensible approach to net zero, we're doing that. He's going to reverse those changes. And if you want your pension protected, we will do that. He's going to have a retirement tax on pensioners for the first time in our country's history.
"So if you end up voting Reform or for anyone else on those issues, you're going to get the precise opposite of what you want."
Mr Sunak also said that he 'cared deeply' about Stoke-on-Trent, citing the £56 million from the Levelling Up Fund he delivered for the city while Chancellor.
He added: "The decision that we made on HS2 freed up an enormous amount of resource to invest here locally in transport. So people who can see that I care deeply about Stoke – I think I visited here more than any other place when I was Chancellor."
The PM acknowledged that 'we haven't made as much progress as we would have liked' on NHS waiting lists since the pandemic – a major issue at the Royal Stoke University Hospital – but insisted the government was investing a record amount into hiring new doctors and nurses. He also talked about his introduction and planned expansion of the Pharmacy First scheme, which has seen patients referred to community pharmacists for minor ailments.
During his speech and Q&A, Mr Sunak praised the work done by pharmacists, and talked about how, as a child, he had helped his pharmacist mother with her work.
The choice of the warehouse may also have had something to do with Well Pharmacy being owned by the Bestway Group, whose chief executive Zameer Choudrey is a Tory peer and long-standing party donor. Bestway Wholesale made two £50,000 donations to the Conservatives in the first two weeks of the election campaign.
Mr Sunak was introduced by Jack Brereton, Conservative candidate for Stoke-on-Trent South, who won the seat in the 2017 and 2019 elections.
Mr Brereton said: "We've got to keep delivering for this city. We've had a government and a Prime Minister that have been focused on delivering. I think Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is the guy to do this. He made the brave, tough decision to cancel HS2 through Staffordshire, saving the areaes like Yarnfield and Swynnerton from the destruction it would have caused. It also released billions of pounds that can now invest locally."
The candidates in Stoke-on-Trent South are: Michael Bailey (Reform UK); Jack Brereton (Conservative), Allison Gardner (Labour), Asif Mehmood (independent), Carla Parrish (independent), Alec Sandiford (Lib Dem); Peggy Wiseman (Green).
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