Rishi Sunak calls July 4 UK general election

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Rishi Sunak has announced a surprise July 4 general election, despite opinion polls suggesting his ruling party is heading for a heavy defeat.

The UK prime minister gambled after he and chancellor Jeremy Hunt concluded there was no point holding out until the autumn in the hope of better economic news coming to the rescue, according to party officials.

Sunak told the cabinet of his decision on Wednesday afternoon, defying opinion polls that give Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party a lead of around 20 per cent. He made a formal announcement of the July 4 date just after 5pm.

The FT’s poll tracker now puts the Conservatives on 23 per cent, matching the nadir of Liz Truss’s brief premiership in 2022.

Sunak is hopeful that recent good economic news — including a fall in inflation to 2.3 per cent in April and resurgent growth — will provide a general election platform. Sunak claimed his “plan is working”.

Sunak and Hunt concluded that the political risks of waiting until the autumn to the election were too great and that there were limited signs of better economic news on the immediate horizon.

Tory officials said chancellor Jeremy Hunt had decided he would not have scope for tax cuts later in the year and that there would not be an Autumn Statement.

Meanwhile, Sunak’s team now doubts that the Bank of England will be able to cut interest rates early enough to have any significant effect on the election. Markets expect inflation to edge up.

Most ministers were kept in the dark about Sunak’s plan to call the poll. They were instructed to attend Wednesday’s cabinet meeting at all costs as election speculation gripped Westminster. Foreign secretary Lord David Cameron had to rush back from Albania.

Sunak will have to defy political gravity if his Conservatives are to win a fifth successive general election, extending a run in power that began with Cameron’s coalition government in 2010.

But Sunak is seeking to capitalise on the UK’s tentative economic recovery.

Figures this month showed the country has exited last year’s technical recession with the fastest growth since 2021. Inflation has now fallen to what the government says is a “normal” rate of 2.3 per cent, from a peak of more than 11 per cent.

By going to the polls early, Sunak will hope to draw a line under months of infighting within his party and recent defections by Tory MPs to Labour.

Labour last won a British general election in 2005 — under Sir Tony Blair’s leadership — and in 2019 crashed to its worst postwar defeat under hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Under Starmer, a centrist former lawyer, the party has sought to rebuild its credibility on the economy and other issues such as defence, while mending ties with the City of London.

Labour hopes to gain seats from a crisis-hit Scottish National party in Scotland and the Conservatives across England and Wales. The centrist Liberal Democrats also pose a threat to the Tories in their southern heartlands.

The Reform party, set up by Nigel Farage, also threatens to take votes from the Conservatives. By contrast, in the 2019 election its predecessor, the Brexit party, stood aside in many constituencies.