Rishi Sunak has confirmed the next UK general election will take place in 2024 – finally giving the public a chance to cast their verdict on 13 years of Tory rule.
Under electoral law the latest the Prime Minister can go to the polls is 28 January 2025 and there had been speculation he would attempt to cling onto power until the last possible moment.
Mr Sunak has previously hinted he could delay holding a general election as he said he was “fired up” and “hungry to win”. He also revealed that he wants to remain in Downing Street until at least 2030.
But in a speech to journalists at No10 on Monday evening, Mr Sunak confirmed next year will definitely be an election year – ruling out the prospect of campaigning over the Christmas and New Year period in 2024.
Mr Sunak must request the King dissolve Parliament by 17 December 2024 – the fifth anniversary of MPs first meeting after the last general election – but the timing otherwise falls to the PM and his No10 team.
Many predict that the PM will call an election for the autumn of next year, giving him extra time to try frantically to pull his party out of its disastrous polling position versus Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Additionally, there have been rumours that Tory strategists had set the election date for late October in order to avoid conflict with November 5, 2024, the US Election Day.
Some suggest waiting until the spring, when the vote might be combined with the municipal elections of the following year, and a few weeks after any potential Budget that might be used to outline any plans to cut taxes.
Some thought Jeremy Hunt hinted subtly that the election would take place in the spring during his Autumn Statement.
The hypothesis that Mr. Sunak may visit the nation in May gained momentum when the Chancellor announced his intention to reduce National Insurance by 2%. Normally, tax cuts related to fiscal events take effect in April of the following tax year.
However, Mr. Hunt declared he would make the cut in January, giving voters ample time to profit from it.
However, there are concerns that the Conservatives may have the “worst outcome in the party’s history” in the upcoming election.
Less than a week ago, Professor Sir John Curtice, an authority on elections, predicted that the Conservatives would be destroyed and win as few as 130 seats, which would be fewer than Sir John Major’s 1997 victory following Sir Tony Blair’s historic Labour landslide.