Call for General Election

Patrick Hurley Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.

The petition presents itself as the voice of democratic urgency. In truth, it is something with which we are far more familiar, and something far less noble: it is nothing more than the collective stamping of feet, accompanied by the online equivalent of the call and response, “What do we want? And when do we want it?” We have all encountered this impulse before—or at least those of us who are parents have. It is an impulse pandered to by the Tory MPs who are present: the impulse of the toddler. But a democracy cannot be run like a nursery. This great country of ours, which they repeatedly let down over 14 years of decline, cannot be governed like one either. However loudly certain voices and views might be expressed, or however much they are featured on GB News or shared on Facebook late at night after half a bottle of wine, the truth is that we do not get something simply because we want it.

[Mr Francois]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying—his attitude is unbelievably patronising—that the more than 1 million people across the UK who signed the petition are basically all children who do not know what they are doing? That is his implication, which is deeply insulting to 1 million-plus people, including our constituents.

[Patrick Hurley]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Back in 1983, when he was the Leader of the Opposition —[Interruption.] Members may remember Michael Foot—the right hon. Gentleman will never be the Leader of the Opposition. Michael Foot thought he was storming to victory back in 1983. “Look at this,” he said to John Golding. “I’ve got a rally here. There’s a thousand people cheering me on.” “But Michael,” John replied, “there were 122,000 outside saying you’re crackers.” A million people have signed the petition, but how many people voted in the general election? Well over a million people.

This Parliament was elected in a general election held under rules that were well known in advance, and those rules include a parliamentary term. Some Members might not like it, but it is true. The rules do not include a rolling plebiscite triggered whenever a sufficiently large group of people becomes bored, frustrated or impatient—or someone has shared a video clip with them on WhatsApp.

[Robbie Moore]

Will the hon. Member acknowledge that, in the history of petitions debates, the two most highly subscribed debates have been on petitions asking for a general election in this Parliament? Does he acknowledge that the fact that both those petitions were signed by more than a million people illustrates huge frustration at the Government and that people want them to change course?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Hurley]

I acknowledge that a million people want the Government to change course.

The petitioners who have put their names to the petition say that the people want change, but they are not the majority of people in this country. There are tens and tens of millions of people in this country and only 1 million people signed the petition. Here’s the news: the people actually got change in 2024. Eighteen months ago, we got a Government who explicitly said they would not just go and put sticking plasters on the gaping wounds of the previous 14 years. We got a Government who explicitly said it would take a decade of national renewal. That is what we went to the people with 18 months ago, and that is what they were happy to vote for. We said it would take a decade to fix the country’s problems and the mess the Conservatives left us in.

The people who want change now are the very same people who want to go back to the years of stagnation and decline under the Conservatives—the years of austerity under Eric Pickles, George Osborne and Michael Gove, and, of course, the self-harming referendum that has done this country no favours whatsoever.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman may recall that 17.3 million people voted in that referendum, peacefully and democratically, to leave the European Union. That is a lot more people than voted for Labour at the general election. If he is not prepared to respect the opinion of the million people who signed the petition, and as he is all about numbers today, will he respect the will of the 17.3 million people who voted to leave the EU? Or is that not a big enough number for him either?

[Patrick Hurley]

Those people voted in good faith and they were lied to by people like him—

[Mr Francois]

I beg your pardon? Withdraw!

[Patrick Hurley]

They were lied to inadvertently.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Member must withdraw that comment.

[Patrick Hurley]

I will withdraw it, but does the right hon. Gentleman respect the vote in 1975 on the exact same thing—staying in the European Community, as it was—which was overturned 41 years later? In every Parliament, at every moment, some people want change and others do not. Some want more spending and others do not. Some want radical reform and others want stability. The fact of merely wanting something to happen does not constitute a constitutional imperative. If it did, the Government would be paralysed. We would lurch endlessly from one election to the next, just like we did at the end of the last decade, incapable of governing because the Government were perpetually campaigning. That is evidence not of a democracy that works, but of a democracy that is failing, just like it failed in 2017 and 2019, and just like it failed when the Conservative party was partying while members of the royal family were dying.

An election is not a comfort blanket to be demanded whenever politics becomes difficult or the previous Government’s chickens come home to roost. There is a tendency in debates such as this to treat an election as though it is some kind of harmless release valve. It is not. A general election is disruptive, expensive and all-consuming. It stalls legislation, freezes decision making and turns Parliament in on itself. That is necessary at the right moment, but it is not something to be done after 18 months simply because people have run out of patience.

[Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)]

I am genuinely quite baffled that so many Conservative and Reform MPs are here, given that they have missed important debates in this House on things like employment rights. To be fair to the Conservatives, they went to the debates on VE Day and VJ Day; there were no Reform MPs at those debates. What does my hon. Friend make of that?

[Patrick Hurley]

It looks like Reform MPs turn out only when there is something in it for them.

We should be honest about what the petition represents. It is not a considered proposal for the better governance of this country. We can tell that by the way Opposition Members are giggling behind their hands on the other side of the room. The petition is not accompanied by a constitutional argument for changing this place to make it better, nor by any sort of legislative necessity. It is simply an expression of dissatisfaction at how long it has taken the new Government to fix the problems that were left behind after 14 years of chaos, division and decline caused by the Conservative party. There were years of economic stagnation, a referendum of such consequential proportions that the economy has barely grown since 2016, and a Tory Government who were more concerned with looking after themselves than with looking after the most vulnerable in this country.

[Mr Francois]

At least we buy our own glasses.

[Patrick Hurley]

It doesn’t look like it.

If adults behaved in their working lives the way the petition urges Parliament to behave—abandoning responsibility at the first sight of trouble, and demanding resets whenever outcomes failed to please them—we would call it irresponsible and childish. We would not reward it. Democracy requires more than just knee-jerk, reflexive wanting. To indulge every demand for an immediate election is not to respect the voters, but to infantilise them. The House should do better than that.

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[Lee Anderson]

Nowhere on the leaflet did it say we were going cut council tax, so the hon. Gentleman should maybe read it again.

This Government have stolen money off the workers by not increasing the income tax thresholds—something they promised to do—and they have given that money to the shirkers. By shirkers, I mean that these are able-bodied people—the bone-idle, basically. They refuse to go to work. In fact, they stay at home all day and sponge off the state—[Interruption.] Labour Members are shaking their heads. In fact, the only work some of these shirkers do is go out once every five years and deliver leaflets for this lot—great work if you can get it.

Our farmers have been attacked, our pensioners have been robbed and we have been locking people up for social media posts. And let’s not forget puberty blockers—these are medical trials on children. Everyone on the Government Benches who supports that should hang their heads in shame.

The Government are ending the automatic right to trial by jury—shameful. They allow Islamist thugs to dictate police policy on the streets of Birmingham. They have turned a blind eye to Islamists threatening to kills Jews on the streets of London. They voted against having a national inquiry into the mass rape of young girls in Labour-controlled areas—absolutely shameful. Each one of them should be absolutely ashamed.

[Patrick Hurley]

If the hon. Gentleman is genuinely concerned about the rights of the children of this country, will he support cracking down hard on Elon Musk and X?

[Lee Anderson]

I think X has to clean its act up—that is simple, and I think we all agree with that. It is interesting that all these Labour MPs complain about X, yet they are all on X every day making silly comments—you could not make it up, Sir Edward. If they had any scruples or backbone they would all come off X, but I suspect that not one of them will; they will carry on.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

That last point is complete nonsense. I was going to agree with the hon. Member that generally Government borrowing is higher because of where interest rates are. The most important thing we can do is get inflation under control to reduce the cost of debt. But the reality is that our margin above the rest of the world is higher than it has been for years; I am sure the hon. Member will not dispute that fact.

How do we get growth? We do not go about it the way Members on the Government Benches are talking about. I listened to the hon. Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson), who made a good speech about the priorities of his constituents and what he is doing. But, as with a number of other Members, when it came to achieving growth all he talked about was long-term spending and infrastructure—I am not saying that is not important—or certain allocations of cash from the Government to those areas. What Government Members are not talking about is where growth is really driven from: small businesses. Governments do not create jobs— not sustainably. The only thing that creates growth and increases the number of jobs in our economy is small businesses. That point has been notably absent from the comments of Government Members.

[Patrick Hurley]

If the hon. Member knows how to get growth and bring up the GDP of the country, why has the economy been stagnating since 2010? Why did he not do anything about it?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The UK economy went through many challenges, of course, some of them caused by Brexit; the reality is that a change like that was bound to have a short-term effect—but only a short-term effect. The country grew faster than Germany and France during that period of time. The reality is that we were the third-fastest growing economy in the G7 over that period.

To go back to where we are today—[Interruption.] If only the hon. Member for Southport would accept, rather than chuntering from a sedentary position, that the reality is that small business drives growth and the number of jobs in the economy. Business confidence in July 2024 was plus five, according to the Institute of Directors; today it is minus 66—one of the steepest falls in history.

I speak as someone who has not been a politician all his life. I have done this for 10 years; in the 30 previous years, I started a small business that grew into a large business. I have been through the ups and downs. What the country needs, and what those businesses need, is confidence and stability of policy making.

[Patrick Hurley]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will make some progress. What have we seen in terms of that policymaking? We have seen U-turn after U-turn. My hon. Friends the Members for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) and for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) mentioned the number of U-turns. [Interruption.]