By Robin hall, Managing Director,

Kymin Financial Services Ltd

At just after 11am on Tuesday last week, Prime Minister Theresa May emerged from No10 and shocked everyone, including the majority of her cabinet, by calling a general election for June 8.

She had returned from an Easter walking holiday in North Wales and apparently told only her closest aides that she had changed her mind. David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, and Philip Hammond, the chancellor, were told on Easter Monday and both the home secretary and foreign secretary were summoned to May’s office to receive the news shortly before cabinet on Tuesday.

The Prime Minister said that Britain wanted certainty, stability and strong leadership following the EU referendum and that 'the country is coming together but Westminster is not'.

Brexit is definitely the key driver to her calling for an election.

It has been said that Prime Minister May and her team were too busy with Brexit to consider an election, but once Article 50 was declared on March 29 it cleared the way for her to change her mind.

She only has a majority in the House of Commons of 17 MPs currently and although she hasn’t yet come close to losing a crunch vote in the Commons, the planned Great Repeal Bill could cause her a problem down the line.

There are vibes coming from the SNP, Labour and the Liberal Democrats that other pieces of legislation going through at the same time could be a risk to her plans.

Another factor in the decision could have been, that the next general election was scheduled for May 7, 2020, only a year after the final Brexit talks had taken place. By delaying the next general election until 2022, three years after Brexit, it would be easier to keep the economy on track, which was apparently a big concern for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Also, the Conservative manifesto was written before the EU referendum and perhaps Theresa May was being constrained too much to respond to the changed environment that we are facing now.

On the day of the announcement the markets reacted as they always do with surprise and uncertainty the FTSE 100 index and other shares fell but the Pound jumped on the news.

European Council President Donald Tusk’s spokesman said the 27 other EU states would forge ahead with Brexit, saying the UK General Election would not change their plans.

Mrs May is banking on securing a huge lead in the polls, recent surveys have given the Conservatives leads of more than 20 points. She is also taking advantage of the fact that European Union leaders will not be ready to start formal negotiations about Brexit until the autumn.

According to some polls, it is believed Mrs May is now more than three times as popular as the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn has welcomed the announcement of the general election, saying it would 'give the British people the chance to vote for a government that will put the interests of the majority first', saying that this would include dealing with 'the crisis' in housing, education funding and the NHS and pushing for an 'economy that works for all'.

The next six weeks or so will be an uncertain time for business and the markets.

Until we know what each of the parties manifestos will be, how they are looking to shape Britain for the next five years and how exactly they intend to take us out of Europe, I am sure currencies and markets will be all over the place.

We also have European elections coming up, the results from France over the weekend have now helped shares so it anyone’s guess what they will be like on June 9.

A strong UK government, whoever that may be, is what is needed for the UK as a whole. To be able to negotiate a strong exit from the EU we need to be able portray a united front and not have MP’s squabbling among themselves.

Most economic forecasts predict subdued growth over the coming years as consumer spending falls and the uncertainty of Brexit starts to bite. There are some other major issues which will also need to be addressed at home at the same time.

The NHS has just been through one of the worst winter crises in years and the pressures on the service are going to rise. The plan from the coalition years was efficiency savings of £22bn by 2020 and many people think that will be unachievable. Currently health spending is targeted to rise by just 0.5 per cent a year in real-terms which is a fraction of what is needed to address the problem. The same is true for efficiency savings in schools although not on such a large scale. As all parties draft their manifestos over the coming days, they will all be thinking about how to address these and other issues.

It is certainly going to be an interesting few weeks, we have local elections in Newport and the rest of Wales, England and Scotland on May 4 and then the general election five weeks later.

For those who don’t like politics - don’t watch the news or read the papers for the next month or so.