UK political parties to resume national campaigning on Friday

Political parties will resume campaigning for the general election on Friday, after all sides paused the contest as a mark of respect for the victims of the Manchester terror attack.

Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, discussed the issue of when to return to the campaign trail with the prime minister on Wednesday, in the latest conversation between the pair since the Manchester Arena bombing.

Some low-key leafleting has already resumed, at the discretion of individual candidates, and more local campaigning will take place on Thursday, after a minute’s silence is held nationwide for the victims of the attacks at 11am.

But all sides have agreed that national events – including set-piece speeches by frontbenchers, for example – will not take place until Friday.

Corbyn said: “The British people are united in their resolve that terror will not prevail. It will not prevent us going about our daily lives or derail our democratic process.

“Resuming democratic debate and campaigning is an essential mark of the country’s determination to defend our democracy and the unity that the terrorists have sought to attack.”

The Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party all said they would also postpone national campaigning until Friday.

A Tory spokesman said: “The Conservative party will resume local campaigning for the general election at noon on Thursday, after the minute’s silence to remember all those who lost their lives and others who were affected by the callous attack on innocent life in Manchester. National campaigning will resume on Friday.”

All parties have been anxious to balance the desire to respect the victims of the attack with a determination not to let terrorism derail the democratic process. But Labour were keen to return to the campaign trail.

Before the three-day break imposed by the events in Manchester, Corbyn’s party had appeared to be eating into the Conservatives’ commanding poll lead, and May had suffered a grilling over changes to her controversial policy for funding social care.

The prime minister will travel to Brussels on Thursday to meet fellow Nato leaders, before going on to Taormina in Italy for a G7 summit.

Meanwhile, a BBC spokesman said no decision had been taken as to whether to press ahead with scheduled political programmes beyond Wednesday night.

“Tonight’s Andrew Neil interview with Tim Farron will not go ahead as planned whilst election campaigning is suspended,” a spokesman said, saying further decisions would be taken “at an appropriate time” and would depend on when parties believed it was appropriate to restart campaigning.

Corbyn is scheduled to be interviewed by Neil on Friday night, but the BBC said it was still up in the air whether that would go ahead.

Campaigning in Scotland was also expected to resume slowly from Thursday, but will not reach full pitch until early next week, party officials have said. Three manifesto launches, including the Scottish National party’s planned event the morning after the Manchester attack, were postponed and are all due to be rescheduled next week.

Two parties, the Scottish Green party, which is independent of the party in England and Wales, and the Scottish Lib Dems, had been due to publish theirs on Friday but decided on Wednesday to cancel.

An SNP spokesman said: “Tomorrow will be low-key, local campaigning with local branches back out knocking on doors. Friday will be when the first minister gets back on the national campaign trail.”