The Prime Minister of United Kingdom Rishi Sunak recently announced the date for UK General elections, scheduled to happen on July 4, this year. While the 44-year-old, Sunak faced a major setback ahead of polling as 78 MPs resigned from his party. 

Following this big blow, he is spending some private time with his aides and family while his beleaguered Conservative Party experiences a significant departure of senior members of Parliament. 

According to sources referenced by the Guardian, PTI reported that Sunak is taking the “unusual step” of a day away from public events over the first weekend of the election campaign and instead will spend it in discussion on election strategy with his closest advisers. 

One source of the agency dismissed the notion that Sunak was trying to reset his campaign as “ridiculous,” while another campaign operative noted that ‘prime ministers don’t normally spend the first weekend of the campaign at home talking to their advisers.’ 

Cabinet ministers Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom are the latest prominent Conservative Party members to announce that they will not run in this summer’s elections, bringing the total number of members stepping down to 78. Gove’s decision, shared in a letter on social media Friday evening, was expected due to significant competition facing current Tory members in various areas across the country. 

Among the MPs who decided to step down is Former prime minister Theresa May and former defence minister Ben Wallace already having announced his decision to leave frontline politics.