Theresa May made a pitch for “fiercely patriotic” former Labour voters to switch to the Conservatives as she focused her last day on the campaign trail on key target seats.
The prime minister spent the final three days of the campaign travelling more than 1,000 miles across the country by private jet and car, paying particularly attention to Labour-held marginals.
Her final message to voters was a call for people not to think about how they voted before but think about “who they want to see leading this country through not just the next five years but setting the direction of this country for the future”.
The mood among Conservative aides was relaxed as they headed into the final few days, suggesting an increasing confidence that May will retain her majority after a mid-campaign wobble over the backlash against her social care plans.
The prime minister has deliberately focused her visits on the north of England, Wales and the Midlands in the hope of picking up former Labour or Ukip voters who were strongly behind Brexit.
She said those she wanted to appeal to were “the sort of people I met when I stood, for example up in North West Durham some years ago”, referring to 1992 when both she and the current Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, lost to Labour’s Hilary Armstrong.
“People who are fiercely patriotic, who are very proud of their part of the country, who want to see good jobs for their children, who want their children to get a good quality of education who want the public services to be there to support them when they need it. And it’s the Conservative party … because we will build that strong economy that will see more jobs, see better-paid jobs. We will be on people’s side,” she said.
May was introduced at her final rally in the safe Tory seat of Meriden by Patrick McLoughlin, the party chairman, who said the West Midlands was “vitally important so that we see Theresa May returned to 10 Downing Street with a great majority”.
Despite the polls suggesting her popularity has dropped and her lead over Labour narrowed over the last 10 weeks, May told reporters she was “feeling good” and was enjoying herself on the campaign trail.
She has studiously avoided saying what she would count as a success, but anything less than an addition of dozens to her working majority of 17 would call her decision to hold an election into question. If she achieves a majority of less than 30 she could face questions over her leadership – but the party would probably be comfortable with a majority of more than 50.
If May consolidates her power over her parliamentary party, she could aim for a reshuffle of her top team as soon as this weekend. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is seen as particularly vulnerable to the axe and there has also been speculation about whether Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, will stay in his post.
Tory advisers are already privately talking about their bosses’ prospects for promotion and demotion, in anticipation of a victory for their party.
May’s tour began in Edinburgh, where the Conservatives are aiming to eat into the SNP’s dominance, and proceeded to Bradford, where the party wants to take its first seat in the West Yorkshire city in decades.
She then toured the Labour seats of Fleetwood in Lancashire, Clwyd South in Wales, Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands and Slough in Berkshire, signalling that the Conservatives are confident enough to be adopting an aggressive rather than a defensive strategy.
On the final day, she stopped in Labour-held Southampton Test and Nottingham South, but mixed this up with two seats the Tories are defending: Norwich North and Meriden.
Despite covering a huge amount of ground, May’s visits were mostly fleeting, with limited access to the public. She visited only one household in Clwyd South to talk about farming and give a media interview before leaving Wales, and stopped for only half an hour at a Dunelm shop in Nottingham, where she chatted to a handful of workers in a store room.
Asked by one worker what she would say to undecided voters, May said she really wanted people to go out and vote “because I want to show that our democracy is not deterred by what’s happened”. Raising her hand for emphasis, she also urged women in particular to get out and cast their ballot. “Women died so that women could vote,” she said.
At many of the other stops, she addressed rallies of party activists, stressing her leadership on Brexit and urging them to “vote Conservative in the national interest”.
With 12 hours to go before the polls open, May delivered a final message: “Today is a day for everybody across the country to fix their sights on the future and vote for a better future of fairness, security and opportunity for all … That is the future I want for Britain as we fulfil the promise of Brexit together.”
Her pivot to Brexit came after days of pressure over policing cuts and her oversight of the security services after the terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. In an attempt to draw a line under the criticism, she announced on Tuesday that she would be prepared to rip up human rights legislation in order to toughen restrictions on suspected terrorists.
