AMNA NAWAZ: Britain goes to the polls tomorrow for an election in which the center-left opposition Labor Party led by sir Keir Starmer is expected to claim victory.

The Conservatives, who've governed since 2010, fear a landslide victory for Labor could force them out of power for a generation.

Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports from Britain's South Coast.

MALCOLM BRABANT: For decades, West Worthing has been a true-blue conservative fortress.

But if the changing political tide turns this district red, it'll signal that the Labor Party is riding to a landslide victory across the country on a wave of quiet desperation.

STEVE, Labor Supporter: Something has to be done because its close to breaking point, I think, for the majority of people in this country.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Like millions of voters, this former soldier and paramedic feels poorer after 14 years under the conservatives.

Steve, who declined to give his surname, trusts Labor's promises to raise living standards.

STEVE: What sort of life is it when you feel that you're literally surviving, you're not living a life, you're surviving from one month to the next?

And people are fed up with it.

They want some change.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Labor's candidate here is Beccy Cooper, a public health doctor, who's passionate about one of the party's main pledges, to heal the ailing National Health Service.

DR. BECCY COOPER, Labor Candidate: At the moment in hospitals, we are seeing 18-month waiting times.

Well, things are actually starting to kill people, which is terrible.

So, I liken it to getting a patient off life support.

That's what we need to do first of all.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Cooper says investing in preventive medicine will ultimately pay dividends.

DR. BECCY COOPER: The cost-benefits always show, if you put money into prevention, you end up saving lots of money in treatment.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Knighted for his public service record, Conservative candidate Peter Bottomley, Britain's longest-serving lawmaker, is struggling because his party crashed the economy two years ago, following a series of government scandals during the pandemic.

SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY, Conservative Candidate: We're not top of the pops, but we're here for a purpose, and I'm here to get reelected if I can.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Like other Conservatives, Bottomley fears a Labor supermajority in Parliament.

SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think that you will get very quickly buyer's regret, voter's remorse, and they will say, why didn't anyone tell us?

Well, I won't say, I told you so.

But I will say it now.

Think before you vote.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Trainee police officer Roland Mensah is seeking integrity and hasn't found it.

ROLAND MENSAH, Trainee Policeman: There's so many sleaze and lies and everything that goes on in this current government, which it's not -- it's unacceptable.

MALCOLM BRABANT: But he is not impressed with the Labor leader either.

ROLAND MENSAH: You have to say things that you don't even believe in.

So that's what Keir Starmer is doing right now.

Things that he believes in, he's not saying it because he has to say things that are going to win him the election.

MALCOLM BRABANT: In an election commercial, Keir Starmer polishes his man of the people image with a Labor-supporting former soccer star.

SIR KEIR STARMER, Labor Party Leader: How are you?

MAN: Good.

How are you?

SIR KEIR STARMER: Are we good?

MALCOLM BRABANT: Labor isn't known for wealth creation, but Starmer says his priority is economic growth.

SIR KEIR STARMER: I want in five or 10 years this to be a better country.

Living standards are better.

People feel their schools are better, their hospitals are better, they have got a better chance in life.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Starmer's opponent, Rishi Sunak, Britain's first prime minister of color, portrays himself as a dependable leader for dangerous times.

Under Sunak, a rich former banker, inflation has come down, but he's been waterboarded by the financial mess he inherited and accusations that he's out of touch with ordinary people.

NARRATOR: We face unprecedented challenges here at home because of global insecurity.

But by sticking with the plan, Rishi Sunak is setting the ship and making progress.

RISHI SUNAK, British Prime Minister: You can have tax cuts with the Conservatives or you can have thousands of pounds of tax rises under the Labor Party, because he's simply not being straight with you about what is coming.

Mark my words.

Your taxes are going up if he is in charge.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Although the Labor leader has purged his party of some hardcore left wingers, Conservatives fear Starmer is not the moderate centrist he claims to be.

SIR KEIR STARMER: I would say I'm steely.

Other people say ruthless.

I'm absolutely determined to get to where we need to get to.

And whatever decisions are needed to get there, I will take.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Unless the opinion polls are completely wrong, Britain is about to take a step left at a time when much of Europe is turning hard right.

The only uncertainty is just how big Labor's majority is going to be in Parliament to push through its legislative program.

ANAND MENON, Director, U.K. in a Changing Europe: I think there's precious little signs of hope in the country at the moment.

There's a pervasive sense that Britain is broken, and a pervasive lack of faith in politics to fix it.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Political scientist Anand Menon.

ANAND MENON: Whilst people want a change of government, whilst people are fed up with the Conservatives, I'm not picking up any real sense of faith that Labor will be able to address the problems the country faces.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Jaywick on the east coast is one of Britain's most deprived areas.

Decent affordable housing is scarce here and elsewhere.

Charity worker Sarah Cox supports Labor's plans to build cheap homes.

After buying her first property, the economy tanked, and her mortgage payments shot up.

SARAH COX, Labor Supporter: I have a really good job, a management level job, and I can't afford to go to Starbucks and get coffee because it's too expensive, because food shopping and the electric bill and the mortgage have taken all my money.

It needs to change.

It doesn't need to change under Nigel Farage, though.

It needs to change under Labor.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Jaywick belongs to the district being contested by Nigel Farage, the catalyst for Britain's exit from the European Union and Donald Trump's most prominent ally here.

Farage's anti-immigration Reform Party could help boost Labor's majority by attracting support from disaffected voters who would normally back the Conservatives.

NIGEL FARAGE, Reform Party Leader: You know, nothing works anymore, does it?

Nothing works, the Health Service, traveling anywhere?

Try to get your kids or grandkids to get a house.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Farage believes the Labor Party will implode after five years in power and hopes Britain's divided right will unite behind him at the next election.

Are you destroying the Conservative Party?

NIGEL FARAGE: No.

They have destroyed themselves.

They have literally betrayed the wishes of Brexit voters.

It was about getting back control of our country, getting back control of our borders.

They have given us record levels of immigration.

We are literally living through a population explosion on these islands.

And that's devalued the quality of life of everybody, apart from the richest.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Leading Conservatives hope potential reform voters will reject Farage, attacking him as an apologist for Vladimir Putin after he claimed that the West's eastward expansion provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

NIGEL FARAGE: I stood up 10 years ago in the European Parliament and said, let's stop poking the Russian bear with a stick.

And I said, there will be a war if we carried on the current course.

And they are only screaming and shouting at me because I was right.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Farage's candidate in West Worthing is former tax official Edmund Rooke.

It's Rooke's first foray into the politics of Britain and Vladimir Putin.

EDMUND ROOKE, Reform Party Candidate: We have given him cause, or a pretext, rather, to invade Ukraine by the fact that we've surrounded his country with NATO countries like Poland, Estonia, et cetera, et cetera.

MALCOLM BRABANT: In West Worthing, Peter Bottomley might be saved by wavering Conservative voters who believe Farage is boosting Russia's cause.

SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I'm not going to start discussing Nigel Farage's views on international affairs, because I wouldn't want to have him marrying my daughter or taking my mother out to lunch.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Across the market square, Beccy Cooper says she wants to restore trust in politics.

DR. BECCY COOPER: I think its become a bit too circus-like.

It's become a bit too much about sort of the awful things that some people right at the top of politics are doing.

We need to get rid of that, cut out the rot.

MALCOLM BRABANT: In what some commentators regard as a desperate attempt at a Hail Mary pass, the Conservatives wheeled out former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, removed from office because of numerous scandals.

BORIS JOHNSON, Former British Prime Minister: Good evening.

Good evening.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Johnson warned against what he calls Starmergeddon.

BORIS JOHNSON: Racking up taxes on pensions, on property, persecuting private enterprise, attacking private education and private health care, with all the pointless extra burden that will place on the taxpayer.

And all the time, poor old Starmer is so terrified of disobeying left-wing dogma that he's reluctant to explain the difference between a man and a woman.

And he just... (LAUGHTER) BORIS JOHNSON: And he just sits there with his mouth opening and shutting like a stunned mullet.

SIR KEIR STARMER: We've got plenty to say, because this campaign is about change.

It's about turning the page and rebuilding our country.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Keir Starmer may not be a showman, but the polls suggest that Britain wants the change he is offering, although, for many, voting Labor will be a leap in the dark.

For the PBS "News Hour," I'm Malcolm Brabant in London.