The Labour Party chair sparked a row on Sunday with her response after she was asked on live TV if the government would delay the next general election.
The government is currently facing intense backlash over offering to postpone local in 63 councils next year.
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Ministers claim this would help local authorities who are struggling with the administrative effort of setting up a voting system while also implementing Labour’s plans to abolish two-tier councils.
However, that would mean some local authorities will have been in place for up to seven years without facing voters.
Critics claim this delay is politically motivated, and that Labour is hoping Reform will fall in the polls by the time these councils actually go to the ballot box – although the government has rejected such allegations.
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Sky presenter Trevor Phillips asked Labour chair Anna Turley on Sunday if Labour intended to postpone the next general election beyond 2029, too.
But doing so would require breaching the law.
Turley immediately said: “No, not at all. We are undertaking the biggest change to local government in 50 years and that takes time.”
But Phillips pushed: “If I were interviewing someone in Latin America or Africa, and they said to me what you’ve just said to me, you’d already be saying, ‘banana republic,’ speechifying about the dangers of authoritarianism.”
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He then suggested Labour could use its plans to also reform the House of Lords as a reason to “put off a general election in 2029”.
Turley said: “We’ve still got a huge amount of elections coming up this year in Scotland, in Wales, all of London, we’ve got a huge amount of elections coming up in May…”
Phillips said: “So even if things are difficult and there is reorganisation of Westminster, as I say, you promised to get rid of the House of Lords, there is going to be no delay on general election?”
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She said work to get rid of hereditary peers is ongoing, and general elections “always come at the decision of the prime minister”.
The presenter replied: “What I’m not hearing is that this Labour government can’t see any circumstances by which you would choose to do what you’ve done in local authorities and delay a general election, which, I’ve got to say, I’m finding surprising, that you can’t just say, ’no general election will go beyond the five-year term.”
She replied: “Of course a general election will come.
“The House of Lords isn’t elected. So I’m a bit confused as to why House of Lords reform would impact on a general election. There are no plans for a change to the general election.”
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Her comments sparked major backlash from political opponents, with ex Tory prime minister Liz Truss calling her remarks “sinister” and Conservative MP Alicia Kearns wrote on X: “Either there is a terrifying reality where they’ve discussed delaying it… or Turley is terrified she won’t take the ‘right line’ and be punished… which is everything the public hates.
“This was simple. There was only one answer: of course we won’t delay the next general election. And they better not.”
But Turley also later told Times Radio this had been a “misunderstanding”.
“He was talking about House of Lords reform, which is not going to affect the general election at all,” she said. “There’s no change to the general election.
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“The law is very clear. We will have a general election by 2029. That won’t change. I’m not quite sure where he was going with that, I’m afraid.”
Governments can call snap elections before their five-year term is up but they cannot extend their time in office beyond that, according to law.
The maximum time a parliament can sit is five years from the day on which it first meets.
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