With Tories on the back foot, Sunak delays polls to buy himself more time

This is the year of elections! As many as 60 countries and regions will go to the polls in 2024. National elections will be held in 18 countries in Africa, 17 in Asia, five in North America, four in Oceania, two in South America, and nine in Europe, as well as elections to the European Union, which comprises 27 countries.

India, the world’s largest democracy, has to go to the polls before the end of May. Great Britain, India’s erstwhile ruler, was also expected to hold the general election in May this year, until the Indian-origin Prime Minister Rishi Sunak indicated a few days ago that it was more likely to be scheduled for the second half of 2024.

Poll tradition

It is traditional in Britain for elections to be held in spring or autumn, unless there is a snap poll because of extenuating circumstances like a loss of confidence or fall of government. Summer elections are not advisable, as many voters are away from home holidaying in July and August, and winters are too cold to ensure the electorate will go out to vote.

Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson had called a snap poll in December 2019 to establish his personal credibility as an elected prime minister after forcing Theresa May to resign in July 2019 and taking over as the leader of the Conservative Party. It was the first time that an election had been held in December since 1923.

Hence, the current Parliament will complete its five-year term and has to be dissolved no later than December 17, 2024, and the next election must be held before January 28, 2025. With this time frame in mind, it was expected that Sunak would call the general election in the spring of this year, but he sprang a surprise a couple of days ago when he told journalists: “My working assumption is we’ll have a general election in the second half of this year.”

Opposition attack

Expecting the election sooner rather than later, Opposition parties came down like a ton of bricks on Sunak, arguing that he was running scared of facing the British public knowing fully well that the Tories would lose this time. The Conservative Party has been in power for almost 14 years.

Labour leader and prime minister-in-waiting Sir Keir Starmer accused Sunak of “squatting for months and months in Downing Street, dithering and delaying”. He asked the Prime Minister what he was hiding. “We are ready for an election, the country is ready for an election, people are crying out for change,” said Sir Kier whose Labour Party is sitting on a 20-point lead over the Conservatives in opinion polls.

Buying more time

It is precisely because of this lead that Sunak has bought himself more time in the hope that he wins over the public by turning the economy around and fulfilling at least a couple of his five pledges. “I’ve got lots that I want to get on with. I want to keep going, managing the economy well and cutting people’s taxes. But I also want to keep tackling illegal migration,” said Sunak, laying out his plan to woo the electorate.

In 2019, the Conservative Party won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats and 43.6 per cent of the vote share, the highest percentage any party had got since 1979. Boris Johnson had torn down the “Red Wall” — the staunchly Labour constituencies in north England — with his charisma and the “Get Brexit Done” agenda.

However, Sunak is no Johnson! More importantly, the infighting among the Tories in the last four years has left the party in total disarray and supporters disgusted with their leaders.

Tories in a spot

The Conservatives are haemorrhaging support. The Red Wall threatens to go back to Labour, while traditional Tory supporters that make up the Blue Wall in the South East of England are drifting to the Liberal Democrats. Worse still right-wing Conservative supporters are seeing merit in the recently formed far right Reform Party. In the 14 months that Sunak has been in No 10 Downing Street, he has not shown any signs of being able to unite the Tory flock and lead it to success in the elections.

If there is to be any Tory recovery, Sunak has to grow the economy and ensure a rise in living standards, introduce popular tax cuts, settle the doctors’ strike and repair the National Health Service so that waiting times for crucial treatments fall, and start sending illegal immigrants off to Rwanda. Not only do these things need to happen but the improvements must happen in a way that the public have to give the Tories credit for them.

Economy is key

Sunak was chosen by Tory MPs to become the prime minister because of his ability to stabilize the economy after the markets crashed thanks to his predecessor Liz Truss’s mini-Budget. To some extent, he has achieved this with signs of improving economic figures. Goldman Sachs, Sunak’s former employers, have upgraded its expectations for the UK economy for this year with GDP growth rising from 0.5 per cent to 0.6 per cent and interest-rate cuts happening in May.

Sunak is also hoping that he will push through the revised Rwanda Bill by the end of January and start sending flights filled with illegal immigrants off to the East African country and appease the right wing of his party. But it is uncertain if all this will revive the Tories’ prospects enough to make up the huge gap that the party currently faces in public support.

Row over new bill

Moreover, within hours of buying himself time for the election, Sunak was faced with yet another rebellion from within, this time over a new bill expanding oil and gas licensing. Conservative MP Chris Skidmore, who signed the net-zero carbon emissions target into law under Prime Minister Theresa May, resigned from Parliament in protest against the new bill.

This means Sunak has to deal with yet another by-election for Skidmore’s Kingswood constituency in south-east England in the next couple of months, on top of by-elections in Northamptonshire constituency of Wellingborough and the Lancashire constituency of Blackpool South. As in the by-elections last year, Labour and Lib Dems are likely to win these seats off the Conservatives.

Sunak really does not need these by-elections at the moment, as they consume vital airtime as the Prime Minister needs to put his ideas across to the public. They also strike fear into Tory MPs, feeding the impression of an inevitable defeat whenever the general election is finally held.