To get a new mandate from the people, Labour said yesterday that the future Prime Minister must call an early general election.
Wes Streeting, the party’s spokeswoman on health, said that Liz Truss’s promises to appeal to the conservative base diverged significantly from the platform the Tories ran on in 2019.
She must “go to the British people” to “ask for their approval” to rule as a result of the departure from Boris Johnson’s plans, he said.
Miss Truss, though, said yesterday that she intended to lead the party to victory in 2024.
Mudslinging and animosity have characterised the leadership race, which many Conservative insiders attribute to their ten-point polling disadvantage.
In the event that the incoming prime minister called elections, she would do so against a background of raging double-digit inflation, skyrocketing energy costs, and the potential for public sector strike action. A recession is expected to start in Britain as well.
We are in an election year, according to Mr. Streeting. Actually, Liz Truss ought to schedule a general election. She hasn’t been speaking in a way that, in my opinion, is consistent with the 2019 platform.
‘That manifesto was his manifesto, and Boris Johnson was already hard at work dismantling many of its tenets.
We now have a new Prime Minister who was chosen by a small group of citizens in our nation. It’s time, in my opinion, for her to go to the British people and seek their approval to stay in power.
Of course, she won’t be doing that, as I believe she said today. But Labour will be prepared for the election whenever it happens.
Gordon Brown, the last Labour Prime Minister, avoided a quick election in 2007 after succeeding Tony Blair.
The Coalition government’s law that set a May date for elections every five years has been repealed, giving the Prime Minister back the authority to call them.
Any date in 2024 would be earlier than the deadline set by the legislation, which now stipulates that the next election must be held no later than January 23, 2025.
However, officials concede that an election in the winter of 2024–2025 is unfavourable since it would require campaigning over the Christmas holidays. In December 2019, Mr. Johnson called a vote, but only because Brexit had paralysed Congress.
An early election would give Miss Truss no more than two years to establish a record on which to base her campaign.