British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday took the political gamble of his life by calling a general election which will take place on July 4.
The decision to go to the polls months earlier than he was legally obligated to do so comes amid staggering levels of public opposition to both Sunak personally and his Conservative Party, which has been in government since 2010. His decision to fire the starting pistol on the race may have been informed by recent falls in U.K. inflation which he will doubtlessly use as a campaign platform to claim that his economic policies are working.
The announcement was made on the steps of Downing Street as rain soaked his expensively tailored suit jacket and his words were drowned out by Things Can Only Get Better the theme tune from Tony Blair’s massive 1997 election landslide.
His announcement Wednesday came after the British media was set ablaze with speculation that something big was on the way. Downing Street refused to shut down rumors of an impending election—instead referring reporters to Sunak’s favored (and maddeningly vague) line that the vote would take place in the second half of 2024. The anticipation was only heightened when David Cameron, the former prime minister and current foreign secretary, also inexplicably cut short a trip to Albania and the finance minister mysteriously canceled a planned TV interview.
The latest Sunak could have held the election is January 2025. Some pundits theorized that he would hold off from calling the vote for as long as possible given the dire picture that current polling paints for his party’s prospects.
The Tories regularly trail the opposition Labour Party led by Keir Starmer by around 20 points—a chasm in popularity which Sunak now has just weeks to close or risk a disastrous result.
The last time a July general election was held in Britain was in 1945 when Labour won a sweeping majority. Sunak defensively claimed Wednesday that he—and his predecessors—have overseen the toughest period since the Second World War.
Starmer, unsurprisingly given his current advantage, has been relentlessly calling for Sunak to “get on with” announcing a date for the election.
If the Conservatives are defeated in the election, it would bring an end to 14 years of Tory rule in Britain. Since coming to power in 2010 with Cameron leading a coalition government, another four Tory prime ministers have been in Downing Street.
Each of them has had to manage the party’s notorious infighting which has seen multiple leaders toppled in quick succession—an appetite for regicide apparently so insatiable that the U.K. had no fewer than five Conservative prime ministers over the course of just six years.
As well as catching up to Labour before the election, Suank now also faces the herculean task of pulling his party together to fight what, according to some pollsters, could be a battle for the Tories’ political survival. The question now remains if, on July 4, the British people will finally demand independence of their own—independence from the reign of the Conservatives.
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