Rishi Sunak: I’ll win the subsequent election and keep on as PM

Rishi Sunak has confidently backed himself to stay prime minister for an additional time period as he insisted the Conservatives have been on monitor to win the subsequent common election, regardless of an absolute drubbing within the native elections.

Asked whether or not he would nonetheless be PM after the subsequent common election, Mr Sunak replied: “Yes. I’m working actually arduous to ship for the British folks.

“That’s my priority, that’s what I am thinking about. I’m confident we can deliver for people. I know that things are tough right now, but I think we have made good progress in the six months that I’ve been in the job. I’ll just keep at it.”

The prime minister additionally explicitly dominated out doing any type of cope with the Democratic Unionist Party after a common election, and informed reporters he was “not particularly interested in any chat or anything about coalitions”.

The DUP propped up the Theresa May authorities in 2017.

Mr Sunak’s optimism about his election prospects flies within the face of current polls exhibiting the Conservatives trailing Labour by 17 factors.

It additionally ignores what occurred on the poll field on this month’s native elections, because the Conservatives haemorrhaged councillors within the wake of a Labour, Lib Dem and Green wave – dropping greater than 1,000 seats.

If the efficiency is extrapolated out to projected vote share in a common election, Labour could be the biggest celebration simply shy of a majority, with the Tories dropping dozens of seats.

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Sir Keir Starmer, in the meantime, has equivocated on whether or not he’ll do a deal, telling me final week that he wouldn’t be going into any association in any respect with the SNP whereas refusing seven instances to rule out a cope with the Lib Dems.

This is a change of place from a yr in the past when the Labour chief clearly dominated out any type of cope with any political celebration and explicitly mentioned that included the Lib Dems.

The place displays the truth that Labour might effectively discover itself needing to do a cope with the Lib Dems after the election, anticipated within the autumn of subsequent yr.

Sir Keir would not need to rule out a deal solely to then U-turn ought to he win the election – however fall in need of an outright majority.