Rishi Sunak refuses to rule out July general election as pressure mounts on Tory PM

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Rishi Sunak has refused to rule out a July general election. The Tory Prime Minister avoided questions from reporters about whether the country could go to the polls in the summer rather than the autumn.

He repeated his line that he intends to call a vote "in the second half of the year" while travelling to Poland on Tuesday.Sunak told reporters on the plane: “All I’m going to say is the same thing I say every time.

As I said, I think it was in the first week of January, my working assumption is an election in the second half of the year.” Asked to specifically rule out an election in July, he said: “I point you back to my previous answer.”Told he wasn’t ruling it out, he said: “Every time you guys say that - and when I was chancellor and you would put all these ‘oh are you going to do this tax cut or this tax cut’."All I’m going to say is the same thing I say every time - as I said I think it was in the first week of January, my working assumption is an election in the second half of the year.”Sunak also would not be drawn on whether deportation flights to Rwanda would take off before the election.He said: “I’ve been very clear from the beginning of the year, my working assumption is for an election in the second half of the year and I would reiterate that as I have done every time any of you has asked me this question.“As I said on flights yesterday, 10-12 weeks, that’s what we’re working towards for all the reasons that I outlined yesterday, and the prep that we’re doing and making sure that the process is as rigorous and thorough as it can be, cos we don’t want to give anyone any opportunity to frustrate our plans and that’s why we want to do it rigorous and carefully.”Many reports have suggested that October or