A last gamble for a UK prime minister who has run out of road

A surprise election — or at least a semi-surprise — was Rishi Sunak’s last card and he has played it. And yet like so many of the prime minister’s gambits, this move is a product of his political weakness. It is the play of a man who has run out of ideas, run out of options and sees no reason why his prospects might improve.

Ordinarily a prime minister so far behind in the opinion polls does not rush to the country. Some close to Sunak have long argued for an early vote but the logical moment was to hold it alongside this month’s local elections. Nor can those results have encouraged him: they were uniformly disastrous for his party.

The arguments for July are all negative. They spring from fears that the country might punish a leader for clinging on; that internal party discipline will break down; and a recognition that nothing Sunak has tried has moved the dial in his direction. While the economic outlook has improved, it is not yet feeding through to people’s own sense of wellbeing. Labour enjoys a steady and commanding poll lead on who would better manage the economy. Ministers admit that the country has stopped listening to the government. A sudden election will regain their attention.

There is no reason to think the gamble will work. The rain that soaked Sunak as he announced the election, struggling to make himself heard over a protester playing an old Labour election song, seemed an ominous portent for what is coming. Things can only get wetter. The prime minister looks to be rushing his MPs towards the guns. But the calculation is simple. This is as good as it will get. There is little to hang on for.

The biggest argument for delay, aside from the innate Micawberism of hoping something will turn up, was that improving economic news would shift voters’ perceptions, allowing Sunak to tell them the UK has turned a corner. On Wednesday, he had one of those moments with inflation figures which showed price rises back under control. On Thursday he hopes to see improvement in the immigration figures. 

But there are few more such moments in the offing. The hoped-for cuts to interest rates seem likely to be delayed. The scope for another round of tax cuts appeared ever more limited. On clandestine migration too, the outlook seemed set to get worse before it got better. A first flight sending would-be asylum seekers to Rwanda may take off in July but this will be no more than symbolic. Against that, the summer always sees significant increases in the number of small boat crossings.

Nor are voters feeling any evidence yet of significant improvements in the NHS — on waiting times especially. Again, there is no reason to expect that situation to improve soon. As a bonus for the Tories, Labour has recently lost some support over the Gaza conflict.

Sunak’s own poll ratings have continued to fall. So he has concluded it is better to seize the good news on inflation and proclaim it as evidence of his sensible economic management while urging voters to “stick with the plan”.

Unfortunately for Sunak, the brief, disastrous premiership of Liz Truss shattered the Tory reputation for economic competence. The party was already falling in the polls under Boris Johnson but Truss allowed their opponents to blame the cost of living crisis on the government. Brexit, the landmark policy of the last decade, is no longer viewed by the majority as a success. And, at least as importantly, having three prime ministers in one year cemented the impression of a chaotic, exhausted administration.

The notion that Sunak might offer a period of quiet competence was broken by the weakness of his position and his own political shortcomings. His failure to break more directly with his predecessors means voters view him as continuity rather than a change from what they see as a self-indulgent, ineffective and failed government.

The hope Tories cling to is that articulated by Sunak’s campaign chief Isaac Levido (who favoured an autumn vote). He always argued that opinion will not shift until the UK is faced with a real choice in the teeth of an election. The electoral system encourages the squeezing of smaller parties and voters remain unsure of Keir Starmer. Even a small Tory recovery, Levido argues, may provoke panic among Starmer’s strategists, though pollsters argue Labour’s vote is now more efficiently distributed so that a lower headline lead will win more seats and still secure a majority.

The debate for the election is already set. Sunak will argue that he has got Britain back on track after the two great shocks of Covid and the energy crisis and that only the Tories can safely lead Britain in the face of a dangerous and challenging future. His primary (and almost only) argument will be that Starmer cannot be trusted; that Labour is too big a risk because it is more left-wing than it seems.

Labour counters that Britain is falling short of its potential and that the country needs an end to the political instability and a fresh start. At the same time, Starmer wants to offer as small a target as possible to the Tory attack machine — this means his solutions to the UK’s problems will be kept unspecific.

It will be a dispiriting campaign. What seems like a change election will feature few details of that change and very little time will be spent addressing the truly hard policy choices the victor will face. Both sides will present tax and spending plans that stretch credibility.

Levido may be proved right about the polls narrowing. But Tory MPs will be understandably apprehensive about what is coming. They can see only a hard landing, but the landing was likely to be the same whenever it came.

robert.shrimsley@ft.com