Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Jul 23, 2025

Britain wants an election. It’s not getting one

Britain wants an election. It’s not getting one

The UK political system — and the Conservatives’ rock-bottom poll ratings — mean public clamor for a general election will be ignored.

Now on their third prime minister since the last general election, the despairing British public want a vote on who runs the country. They appear to be out of luck.

New U.K. premier Rishi Sunak did not secure the 2019 election win for the Tories. Neither did his predecessor Liz Truss, who instead for a chaotic 44 days tried to rip up many of the economic and policy promises in Conservative manifesto.

It was, of course, Boris Johnson who secured the Tories’ 80-seat majority almost three years ago — before being kicked out of Downing Street in the summer by his own MPs following a string of humiliating scandals. His replacement Truss, elected by just 81,00 Conservative members, lasted less than two months before her colleagues wielded the knife again.

This carousel of leaders has left some observers pondering how Britain, can repeatedly change its figurehead — not to mention, in Truss’ case, its entire economic direction — without once consulting the public.

Unsurprisingly, it’s a question opposition leader, Labour’s Keir Starmer, hopes to capitalize on.

Asking questions to the new PM in the House of Commons Wednesday, Starmer noted that the last time Sunak took part in a vote — his head-to-head contest with Truss — “he got trounced by the former prime minister … who herself got beaten by a lettuce.”

“Let working people have their say,” Starmer told the PM, “and call a general election.”

A defiant Sunak replied that his mandate “is based on a manifesto that we were elected on — an election that we won, and they lost.”

The UK Conservative party doesn’t have to call a general election, despite record-low poll ratings


Public panic


Constitutionally, Sunak is correct.

The U.K. government retains total control over whether a snap election should be called ahead of the January 2025 deadline for the next vote — unless dozens of Tory MPs suddenly go rogue and decide to bring down their own regime via a no-confidence vote in the Commons.

And the Tories’ rock-bottom poll ratings mean any kind of electoral gamble is off the table for the foreseeable future. Conservative support among the public — already dire at the tail-end of the Johnson tenure — plunged to record lows under Truss.

“The short answer to anyone at home or abroad asking why the Conservatives don’t have an election, is because they don’t have to have an election,” said Joe Twyman, director at U.K. polling firm Deltapoll. “Given the situation the polls are in, they would be assured of a loss.”

Under the British political system, the public votes for a governing party rather than a specific prime minister — and it’s for each party to pick its leader as and when it sees fit. The set-up differs markedly from presidential systems in places like France and the U.S., which are led by directly-elected heads of state.

“It’s a fundamental rule of a parliamentary democracy that it isn’t the prime minister who wins a mandate at a general election, it’s the parliamentary party,” said Catherine Haddon, a constitutional expert at the Institute for Government think tank.

“Once you start going down the route of arguing every prime minister needs to win a general election to be able to hold the job, you are fundamentally changing the system.”

Furthermore, the U.K.’s “first-past-the-post” voting system tends to deliver single-party rule, meaning coalition governments — which might collapse in times of turbulence, so triggering an election — are historically rare.

So Sunak retains a healthy parliamentary majority, inherited from Johnson’s 2019 victory.


Left wanting


But the one thing counting against the Conservatives is public opinion.

A YouGov poll this week found 59 percent of the British public think Sunak should call an election — including 38 percent of all Conservative voters — compared with just 29 percent who thought he shouldn’t. That’s far higher than normal, and way above even the peak figure of 41 percent who wanted an election at the height of the Partygate scandal.

“Turmoil in the government, with the Conservatives now two leaders removed from the one who took them to election victory in 2019, has clearly convinced many Britons that the time is right for a new vote,” said YouGov’s head of data journalism, Matthew Smith.

An internal poll for the opposition Labour Party this week found similar results, with support for an election strongest among swing voters, according to a Labour official. Even a third of those 2019 Conservative voters who are still planning to vote the same way next time round want a snap election, the official said. Those leaning toward Labour are even more enthusiastic about a fresh campaign.

Other research confirms the public is getting restless. A focus group this week for the non-partisan “More in Common” campaign found seven out of eight participants wanted an election once the current economic crisis has died down — a significant increase on previous exercises.

Luke Tryl, the U.K. director of More in Common, said most people want “a choice over who is in charge” — although he noted that the same people also often feel conflicted, being “exhausted with the constant politics of the past few years.”

Consultants at the agency Public First have found similar results in their own focus groups. The firm’s founding partner James Frayne said demands for a general election had “surged in recent weeks, and won’t be going anywhere.” He added: “As far as most voters are concerned, one unelected PM screwed up the economy so badly that another unelected PM must impose brutal austerity in response.”


Internal dissent


Indeed, even some Conservatives — chiefly those supportive of Boris Johnson — have suggested an election is necessary following his departure from No. 10 Downing Street.

Former Cabinet Minister Nadine Dorries said publicly that an election would be “impossible to avoid” after her fellow MPs rejected Johnson’s recent comeback bid. Backbencher Christopher Chope and Tory peer Zac Goldsmith both made similar claims.

“Imposing a new prime minister no-one voted for goes against the grain of what is democratic,” said one Johnson-supporting Conservative MP. “Colleagues who removed Boris can’t have their cake and eat it. We’ve had a sh*t show since, and appointing Rishi without a single vote is precarious. But colleagues insist they don’t want a general election.”

For the vast majority of Conservative MPs, who want to avoid a vote at all costs, Sunak appears their best hope of calming the waters and so holding off the clamor for an election.

“It is legitimate to feel there should be an election,” said a former Johnson adviser. “But in a world where there’s no general election, the best thing for everyone is to have Rishi — because however well he ends up doing, I think he will be quite calm, professional, and not trying to do crazy things that f*ck up all our mortgages.”

Twyman, from Deltapoll, suggested that ultimately, being accused of dodging democracy is probably the “lesser of two evils” for the Tories.

“It doesn’t look good for the Conservatives,” he said. “But a Labour majority of 300 doesn’t look good for the Conservatives either.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×