It was a short but bumpy ride to the top for a man who has only been in the UK Parliament since 2015.
When Rishi Sunak lost to Liz Truss in the Conservative Party’s first leadership race, few were surprised.
Many of those given the chance to choose between the two candidates blamed Sunak for Boris Johnson’s downfall. They also favored Truss’s “optimistic” economic policies over Sunak’s bleak assessment of the fiscal outlook. Although she promised generous tax deals, he argued that economic conditions would be difficult and taxes could not be cut anytime soon. He even warned that they might even have to go upstairs.
A few weeks later, Sunak finds himself succeeding Truss, justifying his criticism of the former prime minister’s tax plans. In the end, he was the only candidate to receive sufficient support to become leader of his party and thus British Prime Minister, partly because he had to avoid another leadership contest. The conservatives could not afford to continue projecting an image of division and chaos.
Johnson was briefly in the running for the job before announcing that he didn’t mind coming back now. We may never know if he really had enough candidates to run, as he claimed.
Penny Mordaunt was a more credible candidate, but an unlikely winner due to her lack of experience. His failure to gain enough support to stand up for the leader’s vote paved the way for Sunak.
Sunak is a traditional conservative in many ways. Born in Southampton, he attended Winchester School, a highly respected and expensive private school. He studied at Oxford and Stanford before joining Goldman Sachs in the financial sector. After graduation, he lived and worked in Silicon Valley for a few years, where he met his wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of NR Narayana Murty, an Indian billionaire.
Sunak did not enter parliament until 2015, when he took the seat of Richmond, in North Yorkshire, a highly conservative part of the country, succeeding the party’s previous leader, William Hague. Until 2020, he was a great unknown outside the party: a new MP who made his way into parliament, impressing but not holding a high position.
However, things are quickly changing in politics and the resignation of Sajid Javid in February 2020 left a vacancy in the government. Johnson gave Sunak the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the most important government positions in the United Kingdom. His honeymoon in the position was cut short by the arrival of covid-19. Sunak found that not only was he dealing with the financial consequences of a global pandemic, but he also had to appear on television almost daily to keep the country informed of his decisions.
Despite the pressure, Sunak turned the situation into a personal success. He was widely recognized and praised for the furlough scheme under which the government paid the wages of people unable to work because of the lockdowns. Gone are the many days when Sunak was accused of doubting whether such a plan should be implemented.
Sunak’s popularity skyrocketed as the British felt his actions had saved them from the worst financial impact of the pandemic, but with the rollout of vaccines and a return to something akin to normal life, they began to wonder how the country will recover financially.
This coincided with enormous problems for the government. Johnson was found to have violated the state of emergency rules and was fined by the police. Sunak was also fined, but he escaped criticism leveled at Johnson because people seemed to genuinely believe that Sunak had accidentally ended up at the illegal party on his way to a meeting. This was the excuse Johnson was selling at the time, but it was somehow more believable coming from Sunak, a man who really seemed to have gone out of his way to help people, rather than someone who seemed to be ignoring the rules.
In a revealing reference to that time, Sunak wrote in his first statement after winning the leadership contest that his administration will be characterized by “integrity, professionalism and accountability at all levels.”
Even more damaging were the revelations that Sunak’s wife claimed to pay non-resident tax status in order to pay less tax. Before this scandal, Sunak was talked about as the most obvious successor to Johnson, but the prospect of a Treasury Secretary allowing his own family to circumvent tax rules stopped his candidacy in his tracks.
In July 2022, Javid (who had returned as health minister) and Sunak resigned at about the same time, triggering a wave of new layoffs from their colleagues.
The decision eventually forced Johnson to resign and the Tories have yet to forgive or forget him, choosing Truss when given the chance to vote in the summer. Meanwhile, the party’s representatives in parliament had always favored Sunak, so when Truss’s short term came to an end, they asked no questions and rallied behind their favorite candidate.
Sunak has a lot of work ahead of him. The UK’s financial situation when he stepped down was already bad.
Two months of inactivity followed as the Conservatives elected a new leader. Then Truss’s mini-budget crashed into the economy. The global impact of the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, rising interest rates and concerns over the UK’s financial stability mean that Sunak will face a difficult time in office.
He must unite his party, knowing that while he was the first choice of many, some preferred other candidates, including Johnson. Meanwhile, the Labor Party is at the top of the polls and possible solutions to the economic crisis will be painful and make a difference.
How is Sunak going to lead the Conservatives to victory in the next general election, scheduled for late 2024 (or early 2025 at the latest) if the electorate feels the effects of higher taxes, hikes in energy bills and stagnant wages?
Their only hope is to distance themselves from the more damaging aspects of the conservative legacy – such as the current state of the NHS, industrial strikes and the chronic underfunding of public services – and associate it with the more positive aspects, such as a high level of youth employment.
Given recent events, his victory in the wake of Truss’ passing is hardly a surprise. Perhaps the surprise is that someone now wants to be prime minister.
This article was published in ‘Het Gesprek’.
Source: La Verdad
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