POLITICIANS across the Cotswolds have been reacting to the news that Theresa May has called a snap general election.

The Prime Minister made the announcement this morning that a general election will be held on Thursday, June 8.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, incumbent Cotswolds MP, said: “Clearly this was a surprise, we hadn’t been given any prior warning but now that I’ve been given a chance to think about it, I whole heartedly back the Prime Minister in her decision to call a snap general election.

“As she said in her speech outside Number 10 this morning, we have united country but a disunited Westminster.

“She needs to have a new mandate and a strong mandate to negotiate the best possible arrangement for the people to leave the European Union and above all unite the country behind that mandate so that after we’ve left we can prosper.

“After all she was elected after the referendum, she doesn’t have her own mandate and I think it’s really important that she does so that she can conduct these negotiations in the sure knowledge that the people are behind her.

“I hope the voters of the Cotswolds will continue to back me as they have done in the previous six elections.

“I have vigourously worked to ensure that the Cotswolds concerns have been heard at Westminster, most recently spearheading the campaign on behalf of all MPs on fair funding for schools.”

Andrew Gant, the Liberal Democrats parliamentary spokesperson for the Cotswolds constituency, said: “We have been calling for this for a long time and welcome it.

“It’s an opportunity for the voters of the Cotswolds to have their say on whether their MP was right to vote for Brexit when they themselves voted in favour of remain.

“It’s an opportunity for them to say whether it was right for Geoffrey Clifton-Brown not to support right over EU citizens.

“And it’s an opportunity for them to say whether it was right to vote against taking in more child refugees.

“We have demanded that the people of this country should have a say on the eventual term of the Brexit deal.

“We are perfectly clear that the voters of this country did not sign up to the hard Brexit that the Conservatives are pursuing.

“The campaign that Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and others ran was based on a lot of statements that have turned out to be misleading at best, including the famous £350m pledge for our NHS.

“We are now beginning to find out what Brexit means for the country.

“It means higher prices, it means there’s far fewer people able to work in our NHS and in teaching and it’s impacting other sectors like tourism that are so important in this constituency.

“As this emerges, we demand the people have a say.

“This is their chance to have a real alternative, it’s not a given that the Conservatives have a natural right to govern and what the alternative that the people of the Cotswolds want, they are not getting from Labour, they will only find that in the Liberal Democrats.”