Prime Minister rules out a general election on May 2
Rishi Sunak has ruled out holding a general election on May 2, when voters are set to go to the polls for local elections in England.
The Prime Minister has previously been reluctant to make definitive statements about the date of the general election, saying only that his “working assumption” was that it would take place in the second half of the year. But in an interview with ITV News West Country, Mr Sunak definitively ruled out a general election on May 2.
He said: “In several weeks’ time we’ve got elections for police and crime commissioners, for local councils, for mayors – they’re important elections.”
Asked whether there would be a general election on the same day, he said: “There won’t be an election on that day.”
The statement will put paid to mounting speculation in Westminster that the Prime Minister was preparing to call a general election to coincide with the local elections, seeking to reap an advantage at the ballot box from the national insurance cut announced at the Budget.
Labour has been particularly keen to talk up the prospect of a general election in May, with shadow Cabinet Office minister Jonathan Ashworth betting Sky News presenter Kay Burley £10 that the election would take place then.
Mr Sunak could wait until January 2025 to hold the election, but has previously said that 2024 will be an election year.
When asked earlier yesterday about the date of the election, he told reporters: “I said at the start of this year, my working assumption was we’d have an election in the second half of this year and nothing has changed since I said that.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the comments showed the Prime Minister was “running scared” of a May election. He said: “He knows that voters will not put up with this Conservative government’s failure on the NHS andthecostoflivingcrisisany longer.”
Earlier Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker backtracked on suggestions of a potential May general election.
In an interview with Channel 4’s political editor, Sir Charles had suggested Prime Minister Rishi Sunak might feel he has to “go early rather than allow this psychodrama to continue”.
Sir Charles told MPS he is rolling up his sleeves for a November campaign.
Speaking in the Commons, the MP for Broxbourne said: “I strode across to Victoria Park yesterday to put my boot into my miserabilist colleagues demanding an early general election. And I said with incomes rising, inflation falling, the economy growing, the plan working, why May 2? I am rolling up my sleeves to man the ramparts in November.”
Meanwhile, Sir Brandon Lewis has become the latest Conservative MP to say he will leave Parliament at the next election.
The Great Yarmouth MP’S decision to stand down means there are 61 Tories who have said they will not fight their current seat at the next election, although a small number are thought to be looking for different constituencies.
A total of 97 MPS have now said they will not fight their current seats, more than at any election since 2010 when 149 MPS stood down from the Commons.