Manchester Bombing Refocuses U.K. Election Campaign
DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC. 8:07 AM ET 5/23/2017
LONDON--The Manchester suicide bombing has hit the reset button on the U.K. general election campaign, probably playing into the hands of Prime Minister Theresa May.
The attack led political parties to pause their campaigning for the June 8 vote, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn saying it "will be suspended until further notice." The Scottish National Party was scheduled to launch its manifesto on Tuesday but postponed it following the attack.
Mrs. May called the election on April 18, hoping her ruling Conservative Party would benefit from the huge lead in the opinion polls they were enjoying over the main opposition Labour Party.
But in the past week, support for her party eroded following publication of its manifesto. On Monday, she then backtracked on a proposal in the manifesto to levy a charge on people's houses to pay for their social care after they died.
Opposition politicians had described the proposal as a "dementia tax." The manifesto was also criticized for not laying out the costs of its proposals.
Heading into the campaign, Ms. May maintained a double-digit lead over Labour's Mr. Corbyn in the polls. But that lead shrunk to a nine point gap over the weekend as voters fretted about the proposal on health care for the elderly, YouGov said.
"She has had the most difficult week since the publication of the manifesto and has looked at her most vulnerable since arriving in Downing Street in July," said Mujtaba Rahman, head of the Europe practice of the Eurasia Group consultancy.
"All of that will now be overtaken by yesterday's events and will refocus the campaign on the issue of leadership," he said.
That will allow Mrs. May to bring attention back to her campaign mantra of "strong and stable leadership," and emphasize the supposed contrast with Mr. Corbyn.
The pause could give the prime minister an opportunity to regain her footing and burnish her leadership credentials, pollsters say.
"When one has crises of this kind, they tend to favor the government in office," says Wyn Grant, professor of politics at the University of Warwick. "They can reassure people and show people they are in control."
Mrs. May, who previously ran the U.K.'s Home Office which deals with terrorism matters, has experience that can " equip her to deal with this, " he added.
Still, analysts cautioned much would depend on how Ms. May handles the fallout of the attack, details of which still remain unknown. She said she would travel to Manchester and host an emergency meeting on the bombing on Tuesday.
The bombing in Manchester comes two months after Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old British-born man, drove a car into a crowd of people near the British parliament killing several people.
Past examples of British elections being disrupted by violence are rare. In 1979 Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Airey Neave was killed by a car bomb just weeks before a general election which saw Margaret Thatcher come to power.
Before the Brexit referendum last June, British lawmaker Jo Cox was shot dead by a man motivated by Nazism. Both sides halted campaigning as a mark of respect. Pollsters however say that the attack had little influence on the end result, which saw the country vote to leave the European Union. Then the campaign was suspended for a day.
Mr. Rahman said he expected the campaign to be suspended for longer than a day but certainly less than a week.
Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com and Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-23-170807ET
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