Rishi Sunak urged to ‘go long’ and call an autumn general election
Rishi Sunak “should go long” and call an autumn general election, members of the influential 1922 Committee executive have urged.
Eighteen Conservative MPs on the ruling body of the backbench group held their termly meeting with the Prime Minister on Monday night when some reportedly warned him against a snap May poll.
Senior Labour figures are insisting the Tories are planning to hold the election in two months despite trailing Sir Keir Starmer’s party by around 20 points.
Mr Sunak has said an autumn election is “the working assumption” but refused to categorically rule out a May election in the wake of the Budget, prompting renewed speculation about when he will trigger the vote.
One member of the 1922 Committee executive told The Telegraph: “My view is he should go long. The economy will pick up, Labour will be challenged more and they could come unstuck. There is nothing to lose going later.”
A second member insisted there was a “wide difference of views on what is the right time for anything”, adding: “The election is obviously a decision for the Prime Minister.”
Martin Vickers, the Tory MP for Cleethorpes who also sits on the executive, signalled at the start of this year he believed Mr Sunak would need as much time as possible before going to the polls.
“There is a path to victory, but it is a very narrow one,” he told the Observer in January.
Inflation is now forecast to fall below the Bank of England’s two per cent target within months, while a later election would also allow National Insurance cuts to have more of an impact and many Tories privately expect the economy to strengthen in the coming months.
The Sun reported a number of executives used Monday’s meeting, held before a drinks reception in parliament, to warn Mr Sunak he would be “barking mad” to call an election on May 2, the same day as local elections as well as the London mayoral race.
Current polling suggests the Conservatives are likely to sustain heavy losses as hundreds of thousands of councillors who won their seats in 2021 face re-election.
The Tories gained more than 200 councillors that year at the height of Boris Johnson’s post-pandemic popularity, while Labour lost more than 300 seats.
Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for mayor of London, is also projected to lose to the Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan, who is hoping to win an unprecedented third term.
Downing Street sources have signalled Labour is deliberately predicting a May election so it could claim that Mr Sunak had “bottled it” if he were to wait until autumn. An autumn election is most likely to be held in October or November.
