Rishi Sunak told to call general election 'now' by Tory peer

14 March 2024 , 09:52

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Rishi Sunak told to call general election 'now' by Tory peer

Rishi Sunak has been urged to get on with it and call a general election now by a prominent Tory peer and businessman.

Lord Stuart Rose - the chairman of supermarket giant Asda - said the "sooner we call an election the better" and even suggested he could endorse Keir Starmer's Labour. He said the Tories needed to reinvent themselves after 14 years in office, but asked: "Can you reinvent yourself while you're in power? I'm afraid I don't believe that's the case".

Time is running out for Mr Sunak to call a general election that would take place on the same day as local and mayoral elections in England on May 2. In order to trigger a May vote, the PM must dissolve Parliament by March 26, in just under two weeks, at the latest. With the Tories trailing Labour in the national polls, the PM has said it is his "working assumption" the vote will be held in the second half of 2024 - but has not explicitly ruled out a snap election in the spring.

Speaking to ITV's Peston programme, the Tory peer Lord Rose said: “I would call an election, frankly now. I am a Conservative, I still believe in conservative values. I don't frankly believe that anything is going to fundamentally change with the UK PLC economy between March and November.

Tory peer Lord Stuart Rose also says the Tories need to reinvent themselves

"I just think now that time is not on our side. It's not about what we do, it's about what everybody else is doing. In relative terms if our country is not growing and others are, we are going backwards." The businessman added: "I would just say let's get on with an election, let's see what the electorate say, whoever gets into power, right now you've got a mandate, get on with it."

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Pressed on whether there was any chance of him endorsing Labour at the general election, Lord Rose said: "I want the best possible thing for the UK. That's what I want." Asked whether Labour could be that, he replied: "Yes, I see no reason why not. What they've offered so far has got some credibility."

He added: "This party, the Conservative Party, which I am a supporter of, has been in power for 14 years but at the end of the day if you look at the last 14 years through a rear view mirror it's not been terribly exciting".

The PM has faced repeated calls for a May election (Wiktor Szymanowicz/REX/Shutterstock)

At the weekend a new poll showed the British people want a ballot so they can finally have their say on how the country is run. Given the choice of when the vote should be held between now and January, May was the most popular option with 33% saying they want it then. More than a quarter (26%) of Tory voters said the same.

Some 15% of all voters picked June, 13% October, 7% November, while just 2% said December and 7% January. The survey, commissioned by Labour Together, found half of people (50%) thought delaying the election to January, which is the very latest it can be held, would be “unacceptable”.

The Conservative peer and former Marks & Spencer chief executive Lord Rose also suggested the Tories should "probably" return £10million to a party donor who allegedly made racist remarks about the veteran MP Diane Abbott. He told ITV : "You have to be able to look yourself in the mirror at the end of every day and say have you done the right thing. Does it smell right? Does it look right? Does it feel right? It doesn't smell right, it doesn't look right, it doesn't feel right, and I think there's a case to answer."

Ashley Cowburn