Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the UK’s next general election wasn’t a priority for him right now, days after releasing a fiscal plan widely seen as laying the ground for a vote as soon as the spring.
“I’m not focused on elections,” Sunak said in an interview with Bloomberg, when asked how he’ll decide when to call a national vote. “That’s something that we announce in the normal way.”
Sunak declined to comment on the timing of the vote, following growing speculation around a potential May ballot. Such talk was fueled by the government fast-tracking a payroll tax cut for January and not ruling out holding an earlier-than-usual spring budget.
The prime minister has to call an election by January 2025. Sunak’s Tories are currently 19 percentage points behind the main opposition Labour Party, according to the latest YouGov survey.
Sunak’s aides have previously suggested he was planning a November election, with the conventional wisdom being that he would want a later vote to extend his time in office. However, some officials also worry that delaying to the latest possible moment may leave Sunak more open to Labour attacks that he’s running scared of the electorate.
Sunak has yet to make a call on the election date and is keeping his options open, according to people familiar with his thinking.
In the interview, Sunak reaffirmed his commitment to stopping the small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel. The government is trying to save his plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, after the UK Supreme Court ruled the proposal unlawful due in part to concerns about migrants being returned to the countries they had fled.
Asked whether it was critical for the first plane carrying asylum seekers to leave for Rwanda before the election, Sunak sidestepped the question.
“I think the British people’s priority is to stop the boats, to stop illegal migration,” he said. “But I do want to deliver on our Rwanda plan because that’s how we will finish the job. And we’re going to do everything that it necessary to make that happen.”
--With assistance from Kitty Donaldson.