4 July election: are Tory MPs onside with the date?

Rishi Sunak upended expectations of an autumn election when he announced yesterday that the country would go to the polls on Thursday 4 July.

With the prime minister having spent months "resisting those who wanted him to call an election sooner rather than later", said the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman, MPs on both sides of the House questioned why he had decided now was the moment. 

The received wisdom in Westminster had been that Sunak would delay the election until as late as October or November, to give his party a chance to close the polling gap with Labour. 

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What did the commentators say?

The reaction among many Conservative MPs and campaigners was of "bafflement" and "fury", said The New Statesman's associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe. Tory members had been told repeatedly that Sunak would "stick to the plan" and wait until the economic situation improved before calling an election. 

"Now all that has changed" and there is fury from all sides of the party, including candidates, aides, special advisers and, not least, the hundreds of Tory MPs who are standing down or look set to lose their seats. They thought they still had "months left to make a difference in their constituencies or to their pet causes" and be paid their MP's salary. 

Some sections of the party are so "furious" that they are "working on a plot" to call off the general election by "replacing" Sunak as leader "before Parliament is dissolved next Thursday", GB News' political editor Christopher Hope wrote on X. But with Parliament only sitting until the end of this week, there would be little time left to oust the PM. 

An autumn election had been expected in Westminster "because Sunak's only hopes seemed to hinge on more time – for inflation to fall, for the Bank of England to cut interest rates, for wages to increase, for flights to Rwanda to take off", said The Guardian's deputy political editor Jessica Elgot. 

But firing the starting gun on a summer election means the prime minister has concluded that "the worst is yet to come" for him and his beleaguered party. The polls have shown few signs of a Tory recovery, Sunak's personal ratings are at a record low and there is "no obvious bear trap waiting" for Keir Starmer that "could make any material difference" to his electoral chances. 

Still, a summer election is "at least as far away as possible" from the annual NHS winter crisis, said Conservative Home deputy editor Henry Hill, also writing in The Guardian. "But it's a thin thread on which to hang the future of a government." Tory MPs facing the "most difficult elections of their lives" had "hoped against hope for a plan" to emerge; "they might have at least expected a warning".

What next?

While shock and bewilderment appear to be the prevailing mood among Conservative backbench MPs, Sunak has at least won support from some members of his cabinet. 

At Wednesday's cabinet meeting, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove reportedly quoted the SAS regiment's motto, telling the prime minister: "Who dares wins. You dared – and you will win."

But after 14 years in power and five different prime ministers, "all current evidence also points to a clear fatigue" among the public when it comes to the Conservative Party, said Politico. "Labour’s simple message, 'it’s time for change,' which is already being distributed on its leaflets, may be an impossible one to counter – whether people voted in July or November."