Keir Starmer is Britain’s new Prime Minister – but why did Rishi Sunak call a snap election in the first place?
Election night saw the Labour leader, 61, become PM after he secured a landslide victory, while Tories suffered an almost total collapse, losing hundreds of seats to their biggest opposition and the Lib Dems. Conservative’s Mr Sunak said voters had delivered a “sobering verdict” on his party after 14 years in power.
The former PM, 44, announced his decision to call a general election in May outside Number 10, when the expectation was that he would remain in power longer. Sunak said in his speech: “Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future, to decide whether we want to build on the progress we have made or risk going back to square one with no plan and no certainty.”
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Vowing to stand by his supporters, he continued: “I have never and will never leave the people of this country to face the darkest of days alone, and you know that because you’ve seen it. As I did then I will forever do everything in my power to provide you with the strongest possible protection I can. That is my promise to you. Because for so many of us, it’s easy to forget the scale of what we’ve been through.”
But his promise wasn’t enough to keep the Tories in power. After winning majority seats, Sir Keir spoke to the public at Downing Street yesterday and promised his party would show what a “force for good” it could accomplish over the next five years. He said: “Whether you voted Labour or not, especially if you did not, I say to you directly, my government will serve you. Politics can be a force for good. We will show that.”
Sunak announced a snap election in May, but he wasn’t expected to announce one until Autumn. It has now been claimed that the ex-PM ‘pushed for an early poll’ because his closest political pal, deputy PM Oliver Dowden, discovered that “every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners”, according to MailOnline.
The mortgage deals were going to double and add potentially thousands of pounds to Brits’ monthly outgoings. A source told the publication the rates were “crucial to the decision”. They claimed: “Oliver was obsessed by it. He flapped, as usual, as he feared that by November another 800,000 homeowners would have mortgages which had doubled in cost.”
The source also claimed Tories were “worried about more boats crossing the Channel” meaning there was “compelling logic for a July election”. It was expected that this summer would bring record crossings across the Channel and demonstrate the threat of the Rwanda scheme not working as a deterrent.
The announcement also came when inflation had dropped to 2.3 percent following the news the country had tiptoed out of recession – so the number could be chalked up as a success. If Downing Street had held off longer, those figures could have taken a turn for the worse. In his speech, Sunak said his government had “reached two major milestones” of reducing inflation and growing the economy faster than other G7 countries.
Another reason was that the latest economic forecasts suggested former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt wouldn’t have any spare cash – meaning the Tories wouldn’t be able to announce tax cuts in the Autumn. With the inflation drop, mortgage rise, worries about small boats and limited room for tax cuts, it seemed an ideal time for the PM to cut and run.