British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a national election on Wednesday, naming July 4 as the date for a vote his governing Conservatives are widely expected to lose to the opposition Labour Party after 14 years in power.

Ending months of speculation as to when he would call a new poll, Sunak, 44, stood outside his Downing Street office and announced he was calling the election earlier than some had expected, a risky strategy with his party behind in the polls.

“Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future,” he said, listing what he considers to be the highlights of his time in government, including the introduction of the so-called furlough scheme that helped businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic. “We will have a general election on July 4.”

Sunak heads into the election not only far behind the Labour Party in the polls but also somewhat isolated from some in his party, increasingly dependent on a small team of advisers to steer him through what is set to be an ugly campaign.

But he seems to have decided with some economic gains, such as inflation falling and the economy growing at its fastest pace in almost three years, now was the time to take a risk and present his agenda for a new term formally to voters.

The former investment banker and finance minister took office less than two years ago, and since then has struggled to define what he stands for, becoming increasingly frustrated that what he sees as his successes have failed to be appreciated.

Both parties have all but kicked off campaigning for an election, with the attack lines on the economy and on defence already firmly drawn.

Sunak and his government accuse Labour of being poised to increase taxes if in government and that the party would not be a safe pair of hands for Britain in an increasingly dangerous world as it lacks a plan, charges the opposition denies.

Labour accuses the government of 14 years of economic mismanagement, leaving people worse off, with a series of chaotic administrations that have failed to give the stability businesses have craved to spur economic growth.

If Labour win the election, Britain, once known for its political stability, will have had six prime ministers in eight years for the first time since the 1830s.

‘Ready to go’

Labour said before the announcement it was more than ready for an election.

“We are fully ready to go whenever the prime minister calls an election. We have a fully organised and operational campaign ready to go and we think the country is crying out for a general election,” Labour leader Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters.

Starmer kicked off his party’s election campaign last week by pledging to “rebuild Britain”, setting out the first steps he said Labour would take if it forms the next government.

Labour is running about 20 percentage points ahead of Sunak’s Conservatives in the opinion polls but some party officials are concerned their advantage is not as solid as it appears, fearing many voters remain undecided.

Sunak might be aiming to capitalise on that uncertainty and also to wrongfoot Labour, which has still to complete the selection of all its parliamentary candidates, a party veteran said.

Sunak will also hope that some economic gains and the first flights in his centrepiece immigration plan of sending illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda might also boost his party’s fortunes.  The earliest possible date for those flights is June 24, 10 days before the election.

While some Conservatives welcomed the move to call an election, not all were happy.

“Death wish 2024,” said one Conservative lawmaker on condition of anonymity.        

Source: Reuters

London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan on Saturday secured a record third term, dealing the Conservatives another damaging defeat in their worst local election results in recent memory months before an expected general election.

Khan, 53, easily beat Tory challenger Susan Hall to scupper largely forlorn Tory hopes that they could prise the UK capital away from Labour for the first time since 2016.

The first Muslim mayor of a Western capital when first elected then, he had been widely expected to win as Labour surge nationally and the Conservatives suffer in the polls.

In the end, he saw his margin of victory increase compared to the last contest in 2021.

It adds to a dismal set of results for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as his Tories finished a humiliating third in local council tallies after losing nearly 500 seats in voting Thursday across England.

With Labour making huge gains, the beleaguered leader’s Conservatives lost crunch mayoral races in Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire as well as the capital and elsewhere.

In the West Midlands, where Tory incumbent Andy Street is bidding for his own third term, votes were reportedly being recounted and too close to call.

An unexpected Tory defeat there could leave Sunak with only one notable success: its mayor winning a third term in Tees Valley, northeast England — albeit with a vastly reduced majority.

‘Voters are frustrated’

Writing in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, Sunak conceded “voters are frustrated” but insisted “Labour is not winning in places they admit they need for a majority”.

“We Conservatives have everything to fight for,” Sunak argued.

Labour, out of power since 2010 and trounced by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives at the last general election in 2019, also emphatically snatched a parliamentary seat from the Conservatives.

It seized on winning the Blackpool South constituency and other successes to demand a national vote.

“Let’s turn the page on decline and usher in national renewal with Labour,” party leader Keir Starmer told supporters Saturday in the East Midlands, where the party won the mayoral race.

Sunak must order a general election be held by January 28 next year at the latest, and has said he is planning on a poll in the second half of 2024.

Labour has enjoyed double-digit poll leads for all of Sunak’s 18 months in charge, as previous Tory scandals, a cost-of-living crisis and various other issues dent the ruling party’s standing.

On Thursday, they were defending nearly 1,000 council seats, many secured in 2021 when they led nationwide polls before the implosion of Johnson’s premiership and his successor Liz Truss’s disastrous 49-day tenure.

With almost all those results in by Saturday afternoon, they had lost close to half and finished third behind the smaller centrist opposition Liberal Democrats.

‘Impetus’

If replicated in a nationwide contest, the tallies suggested Labour would win 34 percent of the vote, with the Tories trailing by nine points, according to the BBC.

Sky News’ projection for a general election using the results predicted Labour will be the largest party but short of an overall majority.

Its by-election scalp in Blackpool — on a mammoth 26-percent swing — was the Conservatives’ 11th such loss in this parliament, the most by any government since the late 1960s.

Speculation has been rife in Westminster that restive Tory lawmakers could use the dire local election results to try to replace him. But that prospect seems to have failed to materialise.

However, it was not all good news for Labour.

The party lost control of one local authority, and suffered some councillor losses to independents elsewhere, due to what analysts said was its stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

Polling expert John Curtice assessed there were concerning signs for the opposition.

“These were more elections in which the impetus to defeat the Conservatives was greater than the level of enthusiasm for Labour,” he noted in the i newspaper.

“Electorally, it is still far from clear that Sir Keir Starmer is the heir to (Tony) Blair.”

Source: AFP

Lawmaker Simon Harris was elected Ireland’s prime minister by a vote in parliament Tuesday, becoming at 37 the country’s youngest-ever leader.

Harris takes over as head of Ireland’s three-party coalition government from Leo Varadkar, who announced his surprise resignation last month. Harris, who served as higher education minister in Varadkar’s government, was the only candidate to replace him as head of the center-right Fine Gael party.

Lawmakers in the Dáil, the lower house of Ireland’s parliament, confirmed Harris as taoiseach, or prime minister, by a 88-69 vote.

He was formally appointed to the post by President Michael D. Higgins in a ceremony at the president’s official residence in Dublin.

Harris was first elected to parliament at 24 and has been nicknamed the “TikTok taoiseach” – pronounced TEA-shock – because of his fondness for communicating on social media. He faces challenges including a strained health service, soaring housing costs and an exodus of Fine Gael lawmakers, more than 10 of whom have said they will not run for reelection.

“I commit to doing everything that I can to honor the trust that you have placed in me today,” Harris said. “As taoiseach I want to bring new ideas, a new energy and a new empathy to public life.”

Varadkar was the previous youngest-ever premier when first elected at age 38, as well as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister. Varadkar, whose mother is Irish and father is Indian, was also Ireland’s first biracial taoiseach.

Varadkar, 45, has had two spells as taoiseach – between 2017 and 2020 and again since December 2022 as part of a job-share with Micheál Martin, the head of Fianna Fáil.

Varadkar officially stepped down on Monday when he handed in his letter of resignation to the president.

Varadkar told the Dáil on Tuesday that his time in politics had been the “most fulfilling and rewarding time” of his life.

“But today is the beginning of a new era for my party, a new chapter in my life and a new phase for this coalition government,” he said.

Harris has said he plans to keep the Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition government going until March 2025, when an election must be held.

Opposition parties argued that the Irish public deserves an early election.

“Another Fine Gael taoiseach is the last thing the people need,” said Mary Lou McDonald, leader of left-wing party Sinn Fein. “We need a change of leadership, we need a change of government.”

Source: AP