Rishi Sunak has been slammed for an anti-Labour poster showing people with their hands raised saying “surrender”.
The PM was criticised after posting an image on his personal X/Twitter account that showed the backs of a man, a woman and a young child with their hands raised in the air. The caption reads: “Don’t surrender your family’s future to Labour.”
Brendan Cox, the wife of murdered MP Jo Cox, criticised the attack ad. He quoted Mr Sunak’s post and responded: “Labour are going to gun down your family. Don’t pretend you weren’t warned… Er…” Labour MP Ms Cox was shot and stabbed multiple times on her way to a constituency surgery in 2016.
He added: “Election campaigns are always fraught, but suggesting that if the other party get in you might have to surrender your family is just bizarre. If it wasn’t so ridiculous it would be offensive.”
People on social media questioned what members of the armed forces, who have been in genuine hostage situations, would feel about seeing the image. Historian Glen O’Hara wrote: “This is what they’ve come to. Utter dogturd comms that must have Tories tearing their hair out in frustration. Just rubbish.”
Labour councillor Richard Olszewski, who represents Camden in London, branded the post “offensive”. “This is just like Churchill’s infamous ‘Gestapo’ jibe at Labour in the 1945 election,” he said. “It’s divorced from reality, offensive and, like Churchill’s in ‘45, it won’t work. The Tories are stoking divisions, Labour is healing them.”
He was referring to Sir Winston invoking the reference to the Nazi secret police during an election campaign. The former PM went as far as to stay that if Labour were elected it would need to “fall back on some kind of Gestapo” to implement its policies.
Earlier in the campaign, Mr Sunak faced a major backlash for leaving D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations early.