New polling suggests close to three-quarters of Brits (73 per cent) want to see a General Election before May – while just 12 per cent are happy to wait until January 2025, the latest month an election can be held.
Figures from More in Common, due to be released today, suggest that Rishi Sunak’s assertion that a General Election is “not what the country wants” couldn’t be further from the truth.
The prime minister told Beth Rigby at the start of the month that the appetite to go to the ballot box isn’t there, but polling out today suggests that the demand is undoubtedly there.
A petition calling for a General Election has also surpassed a quarter of a million signatures on the government’s official petitions website.
It notes that “consistent opinion polling has shown the British public have lost confidence in the current government.
“The NHS is in crisis, the asylum system is broken, there are delays at the ports, and institutions are failing. The British people should be given a say on what to do next.”
The petition has won the support of several prominent political campaigners on social media, including Carol Vorderman, who had this to say:
Simply Red’s X account also called on Brits to make the Tories “extinct”, while Alex Andreou said the petition had the power to “embarrass” the PM.
Related: Yet another by-election nightmare looms for the Tories