UK PM Rishi Sunak eyes ‘second half’ of 2024 for election, as Labour’s Keir Starmer offers voters chance to ‘turn the page’
- Sunak, whose Conservative Party has been in power since 2010, has until the end of January 2025 to call a much-anticipated general election
- The Tories, who have had 5 leaders and prime ministers in 14 years, are widely expected to lose the election to Keir Starmer’s main opposition Labour Party
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Britain is likely to go to the polls in the last six months of this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak indicated Thursday, as speculation mounts about the date of the vote.
Sunak, whose Conservative Party has been in power since 2010, has until the end of January 2025 to call a much-anticipated general election.
He has already indicated he will not leave it until the last minute to go to the country and try to secure his own mandate after becoming Tory leader in an internal party vote in October 2022.
“My working assumption is we’ll have a general election in the second half of this year,” he said on a visit to Mansfield, central England.
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The Tories, who have had five leaders and prime ministers in 14 years, are widely expected to lose the election, handing power to Keir Starmer’s main opposition Labour Party.
Starmer said on Thursday that a much anticipated general election this year will offer the UK the chance to “get our future back”.
In his first major public appearance of 2024, the Labour leader laid out what he called “Project Hope” in a lengthy speech broadcast live on TV news channels.
The chance, finally, to turn the page, lift the weight off our shoulders, unite as a country and get our future back
Starmer, whose centre-left party is well ahead in opinion polls, said the election will be a choice between “14 years of decline” and “a decade of national renewal”.
“This is your year. The opportunity to shape our country’s future rests in your hands,” he said in a direct pitch to voters during an address from the southwestern city of Bristol.
“The chance, finally, to turn the page, lift the weight off our shoulders, unite as a country and get our future back,” Starmer added.
The 61-year-old Starmer said that he “hated the futility of opposition” and was “ready” for the election, in which his party will need to overturn a large Tory majority to win power.
“Bring it on,” he told Sunak, attacking the Conservatives’ over low economic growth, high taxes and the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.
The Conservatives’ years in power have been book ended by economic troubles, first the fallout from the 2008 global financial crash, and latterly a cost-of-living crisis fuelled by high inflation and energy prices.
Possible dates suggested for the vote include May 2, coinciding with local elections, and coming soon after the March 6 government budget, when the Tories are tipped to announce tax cuts to woo voters.
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Asked if he could rule out a May election, former finance minister Sunak, who has pledged to halve inflation from highs nudging 11 per cent again repeated that he was looking at a vote later in 2024.
“I want to keep going, managing the economy well and cutting people’s taxes. But I also want to keep tackling illegal migration,” he said, referring to another key pledge.
“So, I’ve got lots to get on with and I’m determined to keep delivering for the British people.”
The last general election, won by then-Tory leader Boris Johnson on a pledge to “get Brexit done”, was held in December 2019.
