This archive report was first published on 8 December 2019.
Published on December 8, 2019, five days before the general election in Britain, a unique and unpredictable voting pattern was expected.
Some traditional Labour supporters were planning to vote for the Conservative Party, while lifelong Tories were considering defecting to smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.
The election was largely about Brexit, with people reversing their long-held positions to vote tactically in the hope of accelerating Britain's exit from Europe or forcing a rethink in the event of a Labour victory.
Meanwhile, the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, made an unprecedented intervention, denouncing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as anti-Semitic and calling on Jewish voters to boycott his party's candidates.
The sense of crisis was sharpened by a terrorist attack on London Bridge, where Usman Khan, 28, stabbed two people to death, Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, and wounded three others before being shot dead by police.
Johnson immediately declared that those convicted of the most serious terrorist offences should never be released from prison, sparking condemnation for using the tragedy for electoral advantage.
Opinion polls showed the Conservatives with a decisive lead, standing on 44 per cent support against 32 per cent for Labour, 15 per cent for the Liberal Democrats, and three per cent for the Green Party.
