This article originally appeared in our Elevenses newsletter.
Among the many quirks of the British parliamentary system, one that has been exercised the most in recent years is the custom of allowing ruling parties to choose when to call a general election. In 2017, Theresa May decided it would be politically expedient to call a snap vote to shore up her Commons majority in a move that, eventually, brought about her downfall. Two years later, her predecessor Boris Johnson went to the polls in December and took refuge in a fridge until it had been confirmed that his party had secured a whopping majority. And this week, exactly fourteen years to the month since the Conservatives were first elected into government, Rishi Sunak chose the backdrop of heavy spring downpours to pick his moment, with the dulcet tones of D:Ream ringing in the background.
Sunak’s call to go early caught almost everyone off guard. Even as the rumour mill went into overdrive in Westminster the prime minister confirmed to MPs during PMQs that an election would be held in the second half of the year, a commitment he reneged on hours later as he stood on the exposed pavement outside Number 10 and away from the ‘state-of-the-art’ £2.6 million media facility the Tories built indoors just years prior. Assuring the public he would “earn their trust” and “restore pride and confidence in our country”, Sunak fired the first shots at Sir Keir Starmer, saying he has shown “time and time again that he will take the easy way out and do anything to get power”, which is rich, really, from a man who took hold of the most powerful job in the country by securing precisely zero votes from anybody.
Since the announcement, the big question on everyone’s minds is, ‘Why go now?’ The fact that the call came after the ONS said inflation slowed to 2.3 per cent in April, down from 3.2 per cent in March, has been touted as a major driver, although it’s one I struggle to buy. Britons still feel worse off than before the pandemic, the Chancellor acknowledged that earlier on in the day, with brighter economic statistics unlikely to feed through to them over the next few months. If anything, the rate of inflation is likely to rebound as the base effects from the large fall in energy prices filter through, and those wider macroeconomic trends are also partially to blame for why Jeremy Hunt won’t be able to deliver another tax-cutting financial statement in the lead-up to the vote with plenty of pre-election giveaways. So, no. As far as I can see, the economy ain’t it.
Stymying a resurgent threat from the right could have had a role to play in plumping for summer over the autumn. Rumblings of Tory rebellions reached fever pitch in anticipation of challenging May local elections for the party, and the risk of further plotting and defections could have forced his hand. The PM may also have been looking to leverage his first-mover advantage by catching Richard Tice’s party off guard, which has slipped in the polls recently and will now have a scramble to fill a demanding candidacy roster. The announcement from Nigel Farage that he will not be standing in the election is the first win of the contest for Sunak, and will alleviate concerns of Reform UK eating too heavily into the Conservative vote.
But the more I look at Sunak’s rationale for going to the polls now rather than, as promised, in the second half of the year the more I see nothing more than a historic admission of failure. The prime minister has already had to concede that flights to Rwanda will not take off ahead of the election, and he knows full well that NHS waiting lists remain higher than they were when he vowed to cut them and are unlikely to drastically fall anytime soon. Mixed with bleak economic indicators the sorry reality behind Sunak’s call to go to the polls is that, between now and the autumn, things can only get worse for him and his exhausted Conservative Party.
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