In UK election gaffe, PM Rishi Sunak skips main D-Day event for TV interview
- The British prime minister apologised for leaving early, missing a ceremony attended by Biden, Macron, Zelensky – and rival Keir Starmer
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologised on Friday for leaving the D-Day commemorations in France early to give a domestic television interview, the latest self-inflicted setback to his stuttering general election campaign.
Political opponents accused Sunak of “a total dereliction of duty” by skipping a major international ceremony with world leaders on Thursday, while he also attracted criticism from his own Conservative Party colleagues.
Sunak attended a British-organised memorial before returning home and missed the main ceremony at Omaha Beach, attended by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, US President Joe Biden and Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
“After the conclusion of the British event in Normandy, I returned back to the UK,” Sunak said in a post on the social media site X.
“On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer – and I apologise.”
Sunak, languishing in the polls and widely tipped to lose the general election on July 4, sent his foreign minister David Cameron to the event instead, where he was pictured alongside other world leaders.