UK election called for July 4

Rishi Sunak calls an early election his party seemingly has no chance of winning.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a general election for July 4, which seems under the circumstances to amount to a decision to hand the keys to 10 Downing Street to Labour leader Keir Starmer six months earlier than necessary. BBC chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman duly reports “confusion in at least some parts of the Conservative Party about why Rishi Sunak decided to call the general election sooner than was widely expected”.

The extent of the government’s woes is illustrated by The Economist’s polling aggregate, which has Labour leading the Conservatives by 45% to 22%. A prediction model at UK Polling Report credits Labour with 372 out of the House of Commons’ 650 seats, enough for a handsome majority without approaching the scale of Tony Blair’s three victories. However, it also has the Scottish National Party almost matching its 2019 performance with 46 seats, when polling from Scotland would appear to point to extensive Labour gains at their expense.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

106 comments on “UK election called for July 4”

Comments Page 1 of 3
1 2 3

  2. Is the UK broke? Not as broke as most contend says John Bryson, Professor of Enterprise and Competitiveness, University of Birmingham:

    [‘According to many politicians and commentators, the UK is in a very sorry state. Ahead of the general election expected this year, Labour leader Keir Starmer has pledged to “fix broken Britain”.

    He has spoken of his vow to “usher in a decade of national renewal”, claiming that “the economy is broken, the health service is broken, and public services are broken”. “There’s a lot of mess to fix,” he added.

    It’s very similar to the promise former prime minister David Cameron made back in 2010. Then leader of the opposition, Cameron assured voters that he was the man to fix a country badly in need of repair.

    So the “broken Britain” mantra continues, voiced, it seems, by whichever political party is seeking to return to government.

    But this idea of a broken Britain needs to be challenged. It is far too easy for politicians to suggest that the country is on its knees when there is evidence to suggest something quite different. Despite its problems, Britain is not as broken as some would like us to believe.

    The UK economy, for example, is not broken. True, it has not been growing rapidly, but the same holds for a range of similar countries.

    And many of the challenges facing the UK’s economy are outside the control of this country’s government, such as the impact of war and climate change.

    Recent figures show that in the first quarter of 2024, UK GDP grew by 0.6% compared to 0.3% in the EU and 0.4% in the US.

    Inflation is still high but continues to fall, and interest rate cuts are expected later this year. Average wages, excluding bonuses, were 6% higher in the three months to February 2024 compared to the year before (or 2.1% higher when adjusted for inflation). Unemployment rates are around half those of France.

    In terms of core public services, there are areas where the UK is doing well. The UK’s retirement income system, for example, benefits from a “triple lock” system which means the state pension increases each April in line with either inflation or average wages or by 2.5% – whichever is highest.’]

    https://theconversation.com/britain-is-not-as-broken-as-everyone-seems-to-think-229826

  3. I have tried to understand the UK governments strategy under Sunak but given up.
    As for the timing of the election, I assume that in UK as here, your odds improve if you don’t force people to vote in the middle of winter. So we are coming into optimal dates.

    If we end up with majority Labor governments in both UK and Australia it will be even harder to back out of naval procurement deals stacked in favour of the UK.

  5. The UK PM is a total idiot. Domestically he is fucked, time is all he has left – use it and if a major world event occurs which gets everyone worried is his final card to play. But now he has just folded.

  7. [‘Why early election announcement could show how desperate things have become for Rishi Sunak and Britain’s Conservatives.’]

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-23/uk-general-election-why-rishi-sunak-could-have-called-early-vote/103882114

    Not even an armada of refugee boats at the eleventh hour would save Sunak, though it must be said that Starmer doesn’t exactly set the world on fire.
    If he does (as is almost inevitable) obtain the keys to No. 10, it will be due to, among many other things, the Tories’ appalling carriage of C.19, and their propensity for partying during the pandemic.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/12/damning-covid-report-reveals-failure-after-failure-by-tories

  8. He jumped before he was stabbed in the back by yet another group of Tory crazed right wing wreckers.
    It is something, I suppose.

  9. As indicated in the OP, Labor stand to gain substantial seats from the Tories but also, in Scotland, from the SNP – who have seemingly imploded and haven’t won a Holyrood or council by-election in many a month (even seats they were defending).

    Which other parties may make gains? The LibDems to some extent, Reform may gain many Tory votes (but I doubt seats) ….but good old Nigel Farage is considering standing for his new party.

  11. There is apparently a move on for the 1922 Committee to overturn Sunak and stop the election before parliament is dissolved next Thursday. I would suggest it is doomed to fail.
    But how bad would it look if the backbench attempted to delay the election an extra 3 or 4 months because they don’t want to lose their extra 3 months of pay?

  12. Terrible optics for Sunak, he looked like a drowned rat out there in that rain, Keir Starmer in comparison looked prime ministerial when he delivered his statement.
    Will tactical voting be a big thing this time, like in 1997? If so, the Lib Dems could very well take out a few senior cabinet ministers, like Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove.

  14. And so the end begins. This government has looked terminal for the last few years, and particularly since the disastrous Truss interlude of 2022. British voters tend to lean Tory in national elections, but they can be shifted off that position by events which undermine their credibility, such as the Profumo affair of 1963 ahead of Wilson’s 1964 win, the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) fiasco of 1992 ruining their economic credentials ahead of Blair’s 1997 win, and now the Truss catastrophe ahead of this likely defeat.

    It’s also the case that once Brexit “got done”, there has been no real purpose to this Conservative government, and I think even they don’t know what they are in office to do. Consequently, there’s been a real sense of drift since the end of the pandemic, and that sort of drift tends to lead to discontent and trouble-making. And that’s the real reason why Sunak has gone much earlier than everyone expected. The 1922 committee has been sharpening their knives for him for months, and especially since the terrible local election results a few weeks back. Calling the election was the only way for Sunak to keep his job all the way to polling day.

    Polling has certainly pointed to a big Labour win for months (if not years) now, and it certainly seems like that’s the most likely outcome. However, the British Labour Party has a unique ability to lose elections that it really should win (see 1970, 1992 & 2015 for examples), and the Party’s historically poor showing in 2019 means that there is a lot of ground to make up (the Corbyn era keeps on giving). But surely not even Labour could stuff this up.

  15. What the heck was that music Sunak was competing with? Was it deliberate from the Tories to give him some accompaniment, or an attempt by his enemies to drown him out, or just coincidence someone happened to be having a concert in the vicinity?

    Fair dinkum, you’d think a quiet dry indoor venue would have lent the announcement a bit of gravitas.

  16. EightES – Downing street is now blocked off to the public (it has been that way since the 70s and the IRA bombings). But it is not that long – about 80 metres from where the public can get to.

    There is a notorious protestor in the Westminster area who plays music. And he was stand with his loud speaker at the public gate blaring “Things can only get better” towards the media as Sunak stood in the rain announcing the election.

    There is a press conference room that cost 2 million pounds to renovate inside Downing Street that was sitting free at the time.

  18. The lowest vote the Tories have ever achieved was 30.7% in 1997. The lowest number of seats however was in 1906 with only 131 seats. Both of these elections were wipe outs. Currently, they are polling in the low to mid 20s. It is highly likely that they don’t anywhere near either 30.7% or 131 seats.

  19. And of course Things Can Only Get Better was Tony Blair’s election theme in 1997, so there was no small degree of trolling Sunak with that tune.

  20. @ B S Fairman

    A couple of points

    1 even if the 1922 voted to oust Sunak as a party leader he’s still the PM so the Kings principle advisor so won’t affect the election. So yes doomed to fail.

    2 the press room in number 10 is reserved for government business so couldn’t be used. You’ll notice the podium had to badge of office either as this was a political not a government occasion.

    3 the song “things can only get better” was used as the Labour campaign song for the 1997 election. So very apt but the guy playing it has no connection with the Labour Party. As you say he’s a regular demonstrator so not a plant just for today. Earlier he’d been playing what sounded like opera.

  21. Jack Aranda says:
    “July 4th? A most appropriate date for a revolution! (Though the date is not usually announced in advance.)”

    But will it be televised? 😉

  23. The UK Conservatives deserve what is coming to them. Their stupid lock down decisions, the terrible decision made with respect to stopping relatives visiting care homes, and their hypocritical behaviours with respect to the lockdown protocols (not that UK Labor were any better but they weren’t the Government). They have also abandoned the “red wall” constituencies that Boris won. The cancellation of the HS2 project. The decline of the UK Armed Forces. They have pissfarted around with the boat arrivals. The treatment of North Ireland in the Brexit border issue has been shocking – nowhere in the UK should be treated differently. The white anting of Liz Truss by both the civil service and the nervous nellies in the party. And Sunak is just another dilettante weather vane.

    My hope is the loss isn’t too great and then Penny Mordant takes the reigns and leads then back to government, supported by Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch – all fine conservatives.

  25. I wonder what the turn-out will be?
    The recent individual seat elections showed a poor turn out.
    There is an irony in that the UK economy is starting to pick up but I sense the ‘time for change’ thing – will win the day.
    Fourteen years is a long time in office regardless of which side of politics one is on.
    Bozo the Clown, Boris, during Covid and the conga line of PM’s has shown the Conservatives -riven by divisions between the moderate right and the loony right – are in for a tough time of it.
    Even Oz friends of the Tories, right here on this site, are calling for the Tories to swing even further to the right by calling for the likes of Mordant and other hard-right ideologues to take over. So, the Conservatives will start to talk like some Argentinian populist whose approach is to impoverish the country in the name of being “tough’.
    Mind you, this is the same mantra who claim the conservative side of politics should ‘get out of people’s lives’ or some such which is surely the biggest con ever.

  26. Turnout is always low in by-elections. Even in Australia where voting is compulsory, turnout at by-elections inevitably drops. I wouldn’t read anything into it.

  27. FUBAR

    Some interesting points but I suspect that one of the truly large killers was Brexit. The fulcrum here was World Empire.

    I remember during the run up to the referendum the Brits indulged in an orgy of empire nostalgia.

    There was a sense that the Brits were going to tell the EU what to do. Churchill. Guernsey potato peels. Dunkirk. Even Vera Lynn was exhumed. The British Commonwealth of Nations was to become a new trade bloc.
    Brexit failed to deliver on its promises. The Empire did not rise from the ashes.
    Brexit did increase the amount of sewage on the beaches as the Brits escaped the clutches of EU environmental standards.
    Brexit did drive away hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurial europeans.
    Brexit did clog trade with enormous amounts of klutzy and pointless paperwork.
    Brexit actually increased the flow of boat people.

    There were other important themes. One was the MakeBritainGreatAgain urge among Conservatives to eat themselves alive. Another was the almost routine contempt for the plebs. Not very classy class warfare.
    Another important theme is having to wear the consequences of privatization: rail, water, sewage – all basic modern services, increasingly debt burdened, increasingly decrepit, increasingly failing, and all increasingly expensive for consumers.
    Then there is the rundown of the NHS.
    Housing is a massive issue.
    Inflation, real wages… oh… you know the story.
    Someone opined somewhere that the British economy is not all doom and gloom. I agree with this. It is not a basket case. But the Tories seem utterly incapable of turning average into good, or good into better.

  28. The both leaders are unpopular line is getting bounced around a bit. But the truth is Starmer has a net approval rating that is close to neutral – that is kinda of like “meh” – where as Sunak has a significant net negative approval rating – that is much of a “nope”. So it is not really a comparison.
    Sure, Starmer is not a wildly charismatic leaders like Blair or Obama but he is not toxic to the majority of voters like the previous leader.

  29. Someone on another forum came up with a playlist for the occasion:

    Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen)
    Song 2 (Blur)
    Things Can Only Get Better (D:Ream)
    Celebration (Kool and the Gang)
    Fuck You (Lily Allen)
    I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
    You’re History (Shakespeare’s Sister)
    Hit The Road Jack (Ray Charles)
    Who Needs You? (Queen)
    Just Can’t Enough (Nouvelle Vague)
    Hit The Road Jack (Ray Charles)
    Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (Steam)
    Let’s Dance (David Bowie)
    You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (Sylvester)
    Death On Two Legs (Queen)
    I Got You (I Feel Good) (James Brown)
    Perfect Day (Lou Reed)
    Reasons To Be Cheerful (Ian Dury and the Blockheads)
    Get The Party Started (Shirley Bassey)

  30. Facing paedophile charges, the recently ex leader of the DUP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson will not stand in Lagan Valley. Speculation that the Nationalist parties won’t stand giving Alliance the chance of a win.

  33. “Nigel Farage has accused Rishi Sunak of calling a snap General Election to stop him and Reform UK attack the Tories for another six months. The honorary president of Reform UK also spoke about his own plans for the upcoming vote.”

    “He also claimed the Tories were “scared” of his rumoured return to frontline politics, though gave no commitment that he plans to ditch his newfound TV career to fight the election…”

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1902496/Nigel-Farage-Rishi-Sunak-scared-election

  35. Welp, the bandaid’s finally been ripped off. Time to get on with this.

    Another end of year prediction I got wrong. I had predicted that the election would be in October. However, I don’t think Sunak would have lasted that long.

    So, this is going to be a big win for Labour. There might be some voters on the left end of their base who might opt to stay at home or vote for a third party in protest against the centrist direction of the party or recent Israel/Palestine stuff but that’s not going to be too much of a problem for them this time. I think the Tories, being the incumbents, will outperform polling expectations (undecided voters sticking with the devil they know and all that) but I still don’t expect it to be anything but a big, decisive Labour win, akin to 1997.

    Sunak will then score himself a nice corporate job, keep his head down for a few years until the bad smell of his government disappears, and then will reappear to try and reinvent himself as a statesman (with the narrative that he inherited a poisoned chalice, after the Johnson and Truss leadership collapses and a bunch of scandals, knew he was never going to win the election and was just there to save the furniture.)

  36. pied piper says:
    “Sorry lefties but Brexit will not be dismantled. It’s what the public voted for.”

    Sorry, Righties, but it’s what the public now regrets.

  37. pied pipersays: Thursday, May 23, 2024 at 12:18 pm
    “Sorry lefties but Brexit will not be dismantled. Its what the public voted for”

    An awful lot seem to be of the opinion that “it is not the Brexit I voted for”.

  42. The Tories look like being returned with a number of seats with a 9 in front of it. With a bit of luck it might have an 8 or a 7.

  44. @Democracy Sausage at 5:10pm

    That seems to be a fair estimate of how the vote will go. Personally I reckon around +20 seats for Labour and -20 seats for Conservatives from that, since Labour is currently polling better than the 43.2% they got in 1997 and got 418 seats and Conservatives are polling worse than the 30.7% they got and won 165 seats.

    But as said, it will probably narrow as it did in that campaign, where polling had Labour leading around 20-30 points in the leadup and on election night that was reduced to 12.5 points.

    EDIT: And also this election will be held on boundaries that slightly benefit the Conservatives compared to 2019, but only by around 7 seats or so.

  45. Yes, Brexit was a balls-up, and likely to require some form of structural re-engagement to fix some of the systemic issues… HOWEVER, Brexit is not THE point of this election and anyone who thinks so is being wilful, or doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

    There are a number of unknowns which will determine the scale of Labour’s likely win.
    1. Tactical voting – the most recent in 2019 saw The Brexit Party only run in Labor-held seats, which was a channel for pro-Brexit Labour votes, without having to vote for the Tories. It was also much better organised for Labour in 2017. I expect, as we saw in the local government elections, tactical voting will be very strong and important (although, we shouldn’t look to the council elections as a guide to party totals, only the mood – the Lib Dems aren’t getting 20%+ of the vote nationally – but will likely to disproportionately well – and could pick up 30+ seats based on more or less the same national share.
    2. Scotland – the combination of the collapse of the SNP and Labour’s general resurgence will be important here. In 2015, the unexpected dominance of the SNP meant Labour didn’t have a prayer and also helped drag them down in 2019.

    It is a reasonable expectation the Tories will narrow the gap throughout the campaign, but given how disorganised the they are … the bottom really could just drop out.

  46. “Rule Britannia”. They don’t even properly rule their two islands. Flagshagging nostalgia goggles.

    “The white anting of Liz Truss by both the civil service and the nervous nellies in the party.”
    Hilarious. Truss came in, immediately annihilated the economy by pledging to slash tax cuts for the rich and gift them money hand over fist through borrowing in a “mini-budget” deliberately design to avoid oversight, spooked the markets, plummeted the pound, caused a sell-off of government bonds and, saw predictions (which came true) of massive interest rate and inflation rises, causing banks to withdraw mortgage offers and was gone in weeks.

    Yeah, that was all the fault of the “nervous nellies”, trans lefty lawyers & the civil service.

    Not Lettuce Lizz.

  47. Can we also acknowledge that Truss was gifted the ultimate political freebie when Queen Elizabeth II died and squandered it? I can’t overestimate how much it is a fantasy of British political leaders to be in the top job when a monarch, especially a long-reigning and popular one, dies. It’s an opportunity for whatever the politics of the day are to stop and the nation to come together in mourning, as well as welcoming a new king in, with the PM being a stoic and stable figure who can help mentor and nurture the new monarch. She could have milked that politically and then used the sense of unity to ask the country to stick together and be brave while the country hits rough economic waters. No guarantee of re-election, of course, but a more apt leader would have at least tried to competently capitalise on events.

    She got a free penalty kick and somehow kicked it backwards into her own goal.

  49. Yep, big blunder there. But, because RW identarians loved her for being passionately opposed to the things that make them sad all the time, they think she’s a political martyr who never got a chance to prove her political acumen.

  50. Larry the Cat @Number10cat

    Lots of people asking me where I was when Sunak announced the election. I was inside, because it was raining. Only an idiot would have gone out in that… #GeneralElection

Comments Page 1 of 3
1 2 3

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *