Will there be a general election? How one can be called and why it probably won't happen

After 45 days in Downing Street, Ms Truss announced on Thursday afternoon that she was resigning as leader of the Conservative Party and, therefore, as leader of the country.

It means the UK is set for its third PM within two months, with Ms Truss confirming a leadership contest taking place within the next week during her statement outside No 10.

Whoever replaces Ms Truss will also become the second leader within seven weeks to take office without a general election.

In recent days calls for a general election have been growing, both in Parliament and around the country: the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party have all said the country should go to the polls in recent days - something they have repeated since Ms Truss' statement - while more than 662,000 people had signed a petition on the Parliamentary website by Thursday afternoon calling for an election.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the public were "entitled to have their say" after Ms Truss announced her resignation.

However, it's not likely. This is why.

When will there be a general election?

The last general election was held on December 12, 2019.

Back then, the Conservative Party - led by Boris Johnson - secured an 80-seat majority.

Parliament met for the first time after that election five days later on Tuesday, December 17.

Five years is the maximum length of time a Parliament is allowed sit before another election is called. That means it will automatically dissolve on Tuesday, December 17 2024 unless it's dissolved sooner by the King.

Polling day would normally take place 25 working days after that in January 2025.

However...

How can an election take place before then?

Constitutionally there's no reason or one. People vote for a party in their local constituency, not the Prime Minister directly.

However, it's unprecedented for a ruling party to change its leader twice in one Parliament during peach time. The last time it happened was when Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister in 1940, three years after he succeeded Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister.

There are a couple of ways one could be forced, but both look unlikely at the moment.

The current government can decide when to call a general election. Government's led by Theresa May and Boris Johnson both did this as Prime Minister, with the latter using it to secure an 80-seat majority for the Conservatives three years ago.

However, governments only tend to do that if they think they will win. Opinion polls currently give Labour the lead of more than 30 points and leaving the Tories facing the potential electoral wipeout.

Normally a new Prime Minister enjoys a honeymoon period after taking office, something which can last weeks or even months. However, Ms Truss has not enjoyed that and Tory polling has continued to head downwards without any sign of respite since she moved into Downing Street.

A government facing not only defeat but potentially losing hundreds of MPs is unlikely to make such a move, unless Ms Truss' successor enjoys a such an enormous bounce in the polls it puts the Conservative Party on a par with Labour.

The other way is a Parliamentary motion of no confidence in the Government.

This can be tabled by the opposition and requires a simple majority of the Commons’ 650 MPs to to say they don't have confidence in the current government.

Currently the Conservatives have 365 MPs, so if all Tories MPs voted to say they had confidence in the government, then the motion is defeated and the opposition party's attempt at forcing a general election has failed.

But if enough Tory MPs rebelled and said they don't have confidence in their own party's government - or abstained so they didn't vote at all - the Prime Minister would then be expected to either resign or request a dissolution of Parliament.

After a lot of confusion, the government said it treated Wednesday's night's vote on banning fracking, something brought forward by Labour, as a confidence motion, although several Tories abstained from the vote.

There have been some Tories who have suggested they believe there should be a general election.

Speaking to BBC Hereford and Worcester, Wyre Forest MP Mark Garnier said: "I agree with the principle we should test the new Prime Minister in reasonably short order rather than wait, potentially, until January 2025. I think people will be furious, rightly furious.

"What I would say to caveat that comment with a really important point is that it would be a very unhealthy general election if you were to have one of the major protagonists in it, particularly the government of the time, being in complete disarray, because democracy requires there viable choices. If we had a general election today, with no leader, it wouldn't really be a viable choice, so what we would probably ask is a bit of time to get ourselves into general election order and then go to the country."

If either option was successful, and the Prime Minister of the day went to the King, Charles would then have the power to dissolve Parliament.

Charles officially has the power to get involved himself. However, with a constitutional monarchy, the King is set to stay out of politics, making this third option by far the least likely. Given that the other two options are unlikely, it shows how far-fetched this is.

Adam Tomkins, Constitutional lawyer at the University of Glasgow, wrote that the Monarch's reserve powers are buried deep in the Constitution for emergency use only, such as when a government is collapsing and there's no other way to fix it.

Professor Tomkins said the last time a monarch used these powers to dismiss a UK government was in 1834, and last used to dissolve Parliament - even against the advice of the PM - in 1910.

Fixed-termParliamentts Act

Some may remember the Fixed-term Parliaments Act which was passed in 2011.

It created fixed, five-year periods between general elections, and ruled that earlier elections could only be held only in specified circumstances.

An election was held according to this five-year timetable in 2015. However, the House of Commons chose to hold earlier general elections in 2017 and in 2019, before the act was repealed on March 24 this year.