The Guardian reports: Before the surprise announcement that she would be going to the polls on 8 June, Theresa May had repeatedly ruled out calling a snap general election.

Just before she assumed the role of prime minister, she said there would be no early election under her leadership. On 30 June, in the speech that launched her bid, she explicitly ruled it out.

Then in her first major interview after taking office she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show last September that the UK needed a period of stability after the shock Brexit vote.

She said: “I’m not going to be calling a snap election. I’ve been very clear that I think we need that period of time, that stability, to be able to deal with the issues that the country is facing and have that election in 2020.” [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of using the snap general election as a chance to “move the UK to the right” and force through deeper spending cuts.

Sturgeon said the prime minister’s decision was a “huge political miscalculation” because it would give voters a fresh chance to reject Conservative austerity and a hard Brexit, and give the Scottish National party a new mandate for an independence referendum.

“She is clearly betting that the Tories can win a bigger majority in England given the utter disarray in the Labour party,” she said.

“That makes it all the important that Scotland is protected from a Tory party which now sees the chance of grabbing control of government for many years to come and moving the UK further to the right – forcing through a hard Brexit and imposing deeper cuts in the process.

“That means that this will be – more than ever before – an election about standing up for Scotland in the face of a rightwing, austerity-obsessed Tory government with no mandate in Scotland but which now thinks it can do whatever it wants and get away with it.” [Continue reading…]