We need a General Election now

We’ve all said for ages that surely it can’t get any worse. And now it has.

Now Liz Truss has resigned after trashing the economy, it’s important that we keep holding onto the fact that this isn’t – and shouldn’t be – normal or acceptable. Politics can be exciting - a robust exchange of radical ideas – but it should be dull as anything in constitutional terms. Ours and others’ confidence in how our state and our country functions rests on that. It’s what the markets respond to – and it’s why they’ve gone so wild over the last three weeks. Strangers aren’t so kind when they don’t believe in what they are investing in. Because what we have now is chaos.

And we need a General Election to sort it out.

We’ve never had a Prime Minister before who has lasted just 44 days. I’m willing to bet we haven’t had a Government that has trashed the economy in such a short space of time, either. Liz Truss almost crashed the pound, has put hundreds if not thousands of pounds on our mortgage bills each year, threatened our pensions and has put the cost of borrowing so high that we face deep cuts to our public services.

And yet the Conservative party blithely tell us – after dropping in a move to Austerity 2 this week – fthat they’ll impose their next choice on us. A new leader with a new manifesto, without the public’s agreement. Someone with no mandate from the British people and therefore no business being there.

Our country hasn’t had a fully functioning government for almost a year. There was a two-month hiatus over the summer for a leadership election where each Conservative candidate trashed their own Government’s record of the past 12 years. They hadn’t achieved growth they said (and that is true), there have been mistakes made (that’s certainly true). We were left thinking that everything that had gone before had all been wrong. But now they’re talking about bringing back the same person that made it so bad.

We are on our fifth Conservative Prime Minister in six years, our third in two months. We’ve had four chancellors since July. Countries around the world are looking at us with disbelief. Our proud reputation for stability, prudence, and credibility has been shattered. Meanwhile people are struggling to pay their bills, they can’t afford to eat or to heat their homes., their home-owning dreams or retirement plans lie shattered.

This can’t go on.

The country does not fall into line at the behest of Conservative Party members, the state is not an adjunct of the Conservative Party. They do not have a right to rule. The Conservatives should not continue without a mandate from the voters. Most of the promises from the 2019 manifesto, on which they won an election, have been reneged on. The gravity of the situation demands a new mandate. With the Conservative party in disarray, we cannot risk the prospect of a lame duck Government until 2024 with no new policies, booming poverty and continued cuts to public services. All this, and stalled growth. The British people should be able to choose their political future and leader for the difficult times ahead. We desperately need a new start, we need stability, we need confidence in the UK to grow again.

That’s why I’m calling for a General Election. For the people of Britain, it can’t come soon enough.