Cabinet ministers urge PM to scrap early election plans
SENIOR Tories are urging Boris Johnson to rule out an early general election following the recent defeat in Chesham and Amersham.
Cabinet ministers have been speculating that the Prime Minister could go to the polls in spring 2023.
The move would capitalise on his continuing popularity and the failure of Labour to recover ground under Sir Keir Starmer.
But close allies now want the plan scrapped after the unexpected Lib Dem by-election triumph last week.
A senior Cabinet source told the Daily Express: “The by-election has been useful in injecting a dose of realism into the party.There has been a bit too much triumphalism in the last few months.
“It will cool down the talk of a general election in 2023.
“I think we’re looking more towards May 2024 now. We should serve the best part of a full term before we have another general election.”
Mr Johnson won a landslide election victory in December 2019.
Tory bigwigs including Home Secretary Priti Patel delivered decisive speeches in the run-up to polling day to help clinch victory.
Under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act introduced under David Cameron’s coalition, the next general election is due in May 2024 unless the Commons votes to trigger an early poll.
Lib Dem candidate Sarah Green overturned a Tory majority in the Chesham and Amersham by-election last week by a margin of more than 8,000 votes.
She arrived at Westminster to take her Commons seat yesterday following the 30 per cent swing from the Tories to the Lib Dems in the poll following the death of former Cabinet minister Dame Cheryl Gillan.
Her triumph sent shockwaves through the Tories, with some MPs concerned Mr Johnson’s drive to win votes in former Labour territories in the North of England has left their party vulnerable in the South.
This followed Tory Jill Mortimer’s win in the Hartlepool by-election on May 7, in another crushing blow for Labour.
Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist who has been an adviser on several successful election campaigns, is said to have been in touch with a number of Cabinet ministers recently.
He is understood to have told them that recent opinion polls giving the Tories a 10-point lead over Labour have given a distorted picture of the current mood in the electorate. Tory MPs have also blamed Mr Johnson’s overhaul of planning laws and refusal to scrap the HS2 rail project for the Chesham and Amersham defeat. Newly elected Lib Dem MP Ms Green, who grew up in north Wales, took the affirmation in both English and Welsh as she
took her seat in the Commons yesterday.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who welcomed Ms Green to the Commons, said: “It’s a historic day for the Liberal Democrats. We showed that Boris Johnson could be beaten and I think we’ve put the smile back on people’s faces.
“The reality is this follows on from the success we had in May at the local elections in areas like Chesham and Amersham.
“If you look at Oxfordshire,
Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Wiltshire, really strong Conservative areas, we made gains against the Conservatives.
“That’s why I think British politics is now changed as a result of the Liberal Democrat victory in
Chesham and Amersham. There’s this Blue Wall which is now vulnerable to Liberal Democrat attack.
“People focus on the Red Wall in the North, but the Tories had better watch their rear flank because the Liberal Democrats are coming after
them.” Meanwhile, Mr Johnson is “fully committed” to keeping the triple lock on pensions, it was said yesterday.
The PM insisted he does not recognise claims being made about threats to the pledge, that means an annual increase of at least 2.5 per cent.
But Downing Street did not rule out reforming the formula to stop a bumper payment to pensioners this year that could cost the Government £4billion.
Mr Johnson said: “I’m reading all sorts of stuff at the moment which I don’t recognise at all about the Government’s plans.”
No 10 later insisted the PM is “fully committed” to the pledge.
The triple lock guarantees the state pension increases in line with inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher.