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Around half of voters in the UK want Rishi Sunak to call an election sooner than October, exclusive polling for i has revealed.
As the Prime Minister continues to dodge questions about when a vote would be called, BMG research shows 47 per cent of the public would like the election to be held before autumn.
There has been speculation that Mr Sunak could be considering calling the vote in July, with the PM refusing to rule out a summer poll.
But No 10 sources denied rumours he was planning to trigger an election on Monday to get ahead of a potential rebellion.
It comes as ex-health minister Dan Poulter, who announced on Saturday he was defecting from the Tories to Labour, urged Mr Sunak to call a general election “as soon as possible”.
According to the poll of 1,500 GB adults, carried out at the start of this week, another 18 per cent of voters want the election to have taken place by the end of 2024.
Just 14 per cent said they would prefer the election wait until January 2025 – which is the longest Mr Sunak can hold out until he is required to hold the vote.
With Sir Keir Starmer’s party still enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls, more than half (54 per cent) of those surveyed expect the election to result in some type of Labour majority.
Perhaps because of this, 2019 Tory voters are more likely to be in favour of a later election but, even amongst this cohort, a third (31 per cent) want it held before October.
Just over a fifth (21 per cent) of Tory voters think Mr Sunak should hold out until January. The latest possible date would be 28 January 2025.
However 2019 Labour voters are far more in favour of an early election – with 72 per cent indicating they would like the next General Election to be held before October this year.
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Mr Sunak again refused to rule out a July general election.
He said he would not “say anything more than I’ve already said”, which is that the national poll is likely to be in the second half of the year.
Pressed repeatedly whether he was ruling out July, he said: “I’m not going to do that. You’re going to try and draw whatever conclusion you want from what I say. I’m going to always try and say the same thing. You should just listen to what I said, same thing I’ve said all year.”
Mr Sunak also signalled he could wait for economic improvements to come through, in an apparent hint at a poll later in the year.
“I’m determined to make sure that people feel when the election comes that the future is better, that we have turned the corner,” he said.
There were rumours swirling in Westminster on Friday that Mr Sunak could fire the starting gun on an election campaign as soon as Monday in a bid to thwart a possible challenge from restive MPs.
Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, accused Mr Sunak of “bottling” it by not calling for a general election immediately.
“He should get on with it,” Mr Streeting said. “People are crying out for an opportunity to deliver their verdict on this Government and to vote for change.
“That’s why the Prime Minister bottled an election earlier this year. That’s why he’s bottling it now. That’s why he will have to be taken out of Downing Street by his fingernails by the end of the year.”
A poll for i, published on Friday, found the Conservatives may perform better in the general election if MPs oust replace Mr Sunak as party leader.
The BMG research survey suggests voters who backed the Tories in 2019, but have drifted away amid scandal and chaos, would be more likely to vote for the party under a different leader.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and Home Secretary James Cleverly have both warned colleagues against ousting Mr Sunak before the general election.
Home Office minister Chris Philp conceded that voters “do feel grumpy with the Government” amid dire poll ratings for the Tories.
But he predicted on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the party’s position will “significantly improve” closer to a general election when “it becomes more of a choice rather than a sort of referendum on do you feel grumpy with the Government”.
