Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Rishi Sunak has been accused by senior Tories of handing “a gift” to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, after the prime minister issued a humiliating apology for returning home early from D-Day commemorations in France.
One senior party official said Sunak’s decision to skip an event on Omaha Beach on Thursday afternoon to give a TV election interview was an “absolute catastrophe”. The official said: “It’s a gift for Farage.”
At the start of a BBC election debate on Friday evening, Farage claimed Sunak had “deserted” veterans with an average age of 100 in Normandy, branding the prime minister a “complete and utter disgrace”.
Some Conservatives fear that Reform UK could soon overtake the Tories in opinion polls, a “crossover moment” that could sow further panic in a party whose candidates already fear they are heading for a heavy defeat.
In a sign of Tory dismay over the incident, Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons who was representing the Conservatives in the debate, was withering about Sunak’s behaviour.
“What happened was completely wrong and the prime minister has rightly apologised to veterans but also to all of us because he was representing all of us,” Mordaunt said. She said veterans should feel “treasured”.
There was cross-party criticism of Sunak’s decision to return early from Normandy and then conduct a partisan interview with ITV, rather than spending Thursday afternoon with veterans and world leaders including Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron.
Sunak apologised for not staying in France for longer, but Labour accused Sunak of a dereliction of duty, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said he had “brought shame” on the office of prime minister.
Johnny Mercer, Sunak’s own veterans minister, called it a “significant mistake”, while some Tory MPs compared the incident to Labour leader Gordon Brown’s indiscreet 2010 election campaign reference to voter Gillian Duffy as a “bigoted woman”.
Reform UK moved to 17 points in a YouGov survey this week, only two points behind the Conservatives on 19. “I think it’s certain the lines will cross in the coming days,” said a senior Tory candidate.
Speaking on a visit to Wiltshire, Sunak pleaded with his opponents not to “politicise this”, but the appeal fell on deaf ears, with Tory candidates in despair over the PM’s error.
Sunak said he had attended a number of D-Day events in Portsmouth and Normandy and that “the itinerary for these events was set weeks ago, before the start of the general election campaign”.
But he added: “I returned home before the international leaders’ event later in the day. On reflection, that was a mistake and I apologise.”
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, said: “Rishi Sunak will have to answer for his choice. For me, there was only one choice, which was to be there, to pay my respects, to say thank you and to have to speak to those veterans.”
Jack Hemmings, a 102-year-old RAF veteran who travelled to Normandy, told the BBC Sunak had made the “wrong decision”, adding: “He opted to put an election before the thousands who were killed.”
One Conservative candidate in a traditionally Labour “red wall” seat said: “I can’t tell you how bad morale is today. This is an absolute catastrophe.”
Other candidates confirmed that the issue was “cutting through” to voters. “Every other person raises it,” said one Tory candidate. Another said: “This is killing us on the doorstep.”
Morale is said to be so bad at Tory HQ that some staffers are openly scouting for post-politics jobs on LinkedIn on their computers, according to campaign insiders. The Conservatives currently trail Labour by 20 points.
Lord David Cameron, UK foreign secretary, stood in for Sunak at the Omaha Beach ceremony.
Speaking ahead of the campaign event to Conservative party members in Wiltshire, Sunak refused on Friday evening to say whether he would apologise directly to veterans.
