A year after his election as leader of the Conservative Party and his appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (October 25, 2022), comparability and fatigue are his only political strengths. The comparison is obviously with two predecessors such as Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, compared to whom Sunak fares better despite all the shortcomings and mistakes. And the fatigue of the conservative parliamentarians who no longer have the desire or the alternative to rebel again and overthrow their fourth leader in four years.
“Its mission was to introduce a measure of stability [en la economía del país, después del hundimiento de su credibilidad provocado por Truss] and I think he did. As prime minister he has demonstrated credibility and competence, but now he must present a vision for the future,” said John Hayes, a veteran Conservative MP who is also leader of the Common Sense parliamentary group, a group of at least 50 MPs. historically eurosceptic conservatives, defender of Brexit and very right-wing in their approaches. “We need to know what the current purpose of the Conservative Party is, develop a real sense of where we are going and be more conservative, not less,” Hayes argues.
Aside from the setbacks, the opportunistic turns, his bad luck and even some of his successes in recent months, Sunak’s main problem is his inability – like that of the rest of his party colleagues – to reinvent himself after 13 years in power . All internal currents have tried their luck without success: social conservatism with its doses of David Cameron’s austerity; Theresa May’s moderate line, who was forced to implement a Brexit in which she did not fully believe; the histrionic and ultimately disastrous populism of Boris Johnson; or the extreme Thatcherite neoliberalism of Liz Truss, which caused the pound to plummet in a matter of days.
Rishi Sunak’s resignation was a lifeline for some MPs who saw their seats and salaries at risk, even though he was never popular with members. Citizens approved his and his finance minister Jeremy Hunt’s initial efforts to get the economy back on track. The Autumn Budget, which included more than €63 billion in new taxes and public spending cuts, left the most painful measures in place for the following year and was well received by the markets. But the new prime minister inherited a country with skyrocketing inflation and a population fed up with the cost of living crisis. Strikes by nurses and doctors, train and bus workers, postmen, teachers and even lawyers meant hundreds of thousands of hours of work lost in a country that was already the slowest in the G-7 to recover to its pre-pandemic levels. .
The five promises
With the technocratic mentality of his university education and his American experience in finance, Sunak – the first politician of Indian origin to occupy Downing Street, although the country barely celebrated the milestone – wanted to test his performance as prime minister with concrete and measurable promises. . After taking office, he announced a new government that would be characterized by “integrity, professionalism and accountability at all levels.” At first it was enough for her to distance herself from Johnson and Truss and define his own personality as a contrast, but it was not enough. Citizens wanted concrete results and soon.
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These were his five commitments: reduce inflation by half; get the British economy growing again; lower national debt; Reduce waiting lists in the National Health Service (NHS) and – the issue that most defines this mandate – put an end to the arrival of small boats transporting irregular migrants to the coasts of southern England.
Some of them will be fulfilled on their own, more by luck or inertia than by political commitment. Inflation, which was 10.7% in the first three months of Sunak’s term, was 6.7% last September and the Bank of England is confident it will fall to 5% by the end of the year. As it became known a few months ago, the economy had grown stronger than initially expected and the government was able to avoid what technically looked like a recession. The debt remains unchanged for the moment. And NHS waiting lists have gotten even worse.
However, the great fiasco of the Sunak government was its fierce fight against irregular immigration. A deportation plan to Rwanda that the courts deemed illegal and was not implemented. Some huge ships, like that. Bibby Stockholm Their critics call them “floating prisons”, which hold barely a thousand people, are subject to Legionella outbreaks and are the international shame of the United Kingdom. And a new illegal immigration law (sic) that deprives recent arrivals of the right to request asylum. “An indiscriminate strategy that will cause the displacement of thousands of refugees. Last year three quarters of asylum applications were approved. Going forward, all of these people will be turned away immediately,” wrote Enver Solomon, chief executive of the UK Refugee Council.
The “successes” in foreign policy
Paradoxically, for a politician who prides himself on being in the first group of those who defended Brexit, his brightest legacy – if the elections scheduled for January 2025 at the latest oust him from Downing Street – will probably come from two parts and will consist in corrections. in relations with Brussels. In the bitter dispute over the Ireland Protocol (the fit of this British region in the post-Brexit era), Sunak brought peace when, together with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, he signed the so-called Framework Agreement of Windsor, last February. And just a month ago he finally managed to get the United Kingdom back into the Horizon Europe program to finance scientific projects. For British researchers, Brexit was a tragedy.
His unconditional support for Ukraine, which he inherited from Johnson, and his unconditional support for Israel in the recent war with Hamas have placed Sunak at the center of the geopolitical stage. But no one is a prophet at home and, as in all countries, successes abroad are a consolation and a refuge for the head of government, rarely applauded by its citizens.
The turn to the extreme right
As polls continue to give the Labor opposition a 20-point lead, and by-elections – the most recent of which took place last week in the Mid Berdfordshire and Tamworth constituencies – in which Keir Starmer’s party won historic victories and a drastic turn towards the Party won the vote, Sunak took the most desperate path.
Along with a hardening of the anti-immigration discourse, a defense of “family values” and a delay close to rejecting his Government’s commitments on climate change, the prime minister tried a month ago to appear at the conservative conference in Manchester as a candidate. of change, willing to question the supposedly false consensus.
“By adopting the rhetoric of the extreme right, he ended up reaping the same result: widespread rejection in the country. “Voters knew very well who Sunak was, so trying to convince them that he was someone else was unintelligent and confusing,” complains former Conservative education secretary and then equalities secretary Justine Greening.
The latest YouGov poll shows that half of Britons rate Sunak’s performance as prime minister as “poor or terrible”. The media outlet, which is dedicated to internal unrest within the conservative group, has already counted up to 25 letters to the management of deputies who want a change in leadership. But this figure is anonymous and will only be revealed when it reaches 15% of the deputies (about 50), a level that triggers an internal vote of no confidence like the one suffered by Margaret Thatcher or Theresa May.
There seems to be no desire for heads to roll again. Some, the most rebellious, are already planning a new direction for the party if, as seems inevitable, it returns to the opposition. Most people simply look at Sunak and put the success or failure of the coming months solely on his shoulders.
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2023-10-25 18:17:08
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