Fresh Demands For Election As Sunak Tears Up Pledges

Rishi Sunak has sparked new demands for an immediate general election by indicating that he is ready to tear up a whole range of spending pledges - including the Northern Powerhouse highspeed rail link - as he struggles to balance the government's books in this month's crucial autumn statement.

- Andrew Woodcock

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner told The Independent that the prime minister had shredded his authority by going back on past promises, and called on him to go to the country immediately to seek a mandate from voters.

A senior spokesperson for the prime minister said he was no longer committed to any of the promises made during his bid for the Tory leadership this summer, which included a cut to 16p in the basic rate of income tax by 2029 and a massive increase in offshore wind power. And the aide also raised fresh concerns that chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s 17 November statement will ditch the inflation link for pensions and benefits, as she said Mr Sunak did not regard himself as bound by previous pledges to protect them.

Transport secretary Mark Harper signalled that Mr Sunak was backing away from predecessor Liz Truss’s £40bn promise of “a full new line all the way from Liverpool to Hull with a stop in Bradford”.

Instead, he said the government was returning to Boris Johnson’s 2021 Integrated Rail Plan, which bypassed Bradford and relied largely on upgrades to existing track rather than new lines. The comments have fuelled demands for an early general election, which saw hundreds of workers join an Election Now rally called by the TUC in Westminster.