Britain election

Rishi Sunak’s Last Stand

Britain’s prime minister has announced a surprise decision to hold a general election six months early, on July 4.

It didn’t go according to plan. That’s true of Rishi Sunak’s 19 months in Ten Downing Street. And the manner of his announcement of an early election which will almost certainly see him evicted from office.

A little after 5 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, Sunak appeared at a lectern placed outside his Downing Street office to make a brief broadcast to the nation. As he did so, he was drenched by a sudden downpour of rain. His expensively tailored suit glistened as if a wet suit. And to add to the confusion, protestors outside the gates to Downing Street blared out pop music which threatened to overwhelm parts of the prime minister’s address.

It’s almost as if Rishi Sunak isn’t very good at politics https://t.co/DWPwO1P0Dx

— Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) May 22, 2024

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

Rishi Sunak has chosen to hold a general election six months earlier than he needed to, even though the governing Conservative Party is trailing far behind the Labour opposition in the opinion polls. The decision seems to have been made in the past day or two. But is this a surrender, or a decision to stand and fight?

The immediate prompt was the news earlier in the day that Britain’s inflation rate had fallen to just over 2%. Sunak came to power amid a collapse in confidence in the government’s economic policy. A reckless budget by his predecessor, Liz Truss, had spooked the markets and led to a surge in interest rates. Sunak can now claim that he has restored a measure of economic stability. While economic growth is distinctly modest, wages are now increasing more rapidly than prices.

But on a whole range of other issues – notably plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, attempts to cut the calamitously long waiting lists for health treatment, and targets to clean up sewage-polluted water supplies – Sunak’s government has fallen well short of its declared goals.

He faces another acute problem. After 14 years in power, the Conservative Party is descending into acute faction fighting. Most Conservative MPs believe they will lose the coming election. Morale has collapsed. Defections in British politics are exceptionally rare, but in recent weeks two Conservative MPs have switched sides and now sit on the Labour Party’s benches in parliament. By holding an early election, Sunak is at least arresting the decline into open warfare within his own party.

In his address from Downing Street, Rishi Sunak sought to present himself as a seasoned statesman who could safeguard Britain’s interests in a volatile and dangerous world. He pointed to Russia’s expansionary ambitions, the acute instability in the Middle East and China’s attempts to destabilise the major democratic powers.

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The Conservatives election message to Britain’s voters is: in a turbulent and unpredictable world, stick with those you know and trust. Their difficulty is that opinion polls suggest that most voters no longer trust the Conservatives. And the pendulum has swung so emphatically away from the governing party, it’s difficult to see how the Conservatives can claw back that lead in the next six weeks.

The leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, is a cautious, consensus-minded lawyer. After his party’s brief dalliance with hard-line socialism, he has brought Labour back to the political mainstream. He is not charismatic, but for many voters – who remember Boris Johnson’s turbulent premiership with a shudder – that’s no bad thing.

A Labour government would not mean a fundamental change to Britain’s foreign policy. Labour are slightly more internationalist than the Conservatives and more open to closer cooperation with the European Union. But the main issues of the campaign will be about economic and tax policy and how to fund the National Health Service. And on these issues, the Conservatives are likely to lose the argument.

Many Conservative MPs, fearing that they will lose their Parliamentary seats, have been scouting for new jobs. If the opinion polls are borne out, this campaign will be Rishi Sunak’s last stand and in July, he too will be facing a change of job.

Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC India correspondent.

London Calling: How does India look from afar? Looming world power or dysfunctional democracy? And what’s happening in Britain, and the West, that India needs to know about and perhaps learn from? This fortnightly column helps forge the connections so essential in our globalising world.

UK Election: What Are The Big Issues?

The UK general election is being billed as the most important to take place in decades.

To leave or not to leave

It’s still the same old question. For Boris Johnson and the Conservatives, the central message of the whole campaign is clear — “Get Brexit Done.”

The currently ruling Conservatives are eager to capitalize on impatience among a large part of the electorate 3 1/2 years on from the referendum. They have pledged that Britain will leave the EU on January 31 next year — albeit with a transition period until the end of 2020. Question marks remain over any trade deal. Some within the party would prefer a hard form of Brexit that would prioritize a trade deal with the United States over maintaining close relations with Europe.

The Labour Party fears losing voters in parts of the country that voted for Brexit in 2016 — particularly in the north and Midlands — if it adopts an anti-Brexit strategy. Instead, its policy since the referendum has been one of “constructive ambiguity,” something reflected in its manifesto — which appears to be neither for nor against, Britain’s exit from the EU.

Workers prepare signs at their polling station on general election day in London, Britain, December 12, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner

Instead, Labour wants to renegotiate a softer Brexit deal, which it would then put to the people in a second referendum with the option of remaining in the bloc.

Should the Liberal Democrats win the election outright, they say this would effectively be a mandate to cancel Brexit altogether. Indeed, such an outcome is very unlikely. The Liberal Democrats have said they are open to working with other parties to secure a second referendum if the Conservatives fail to win an outright majority.

From the cradle to the grave

The founding of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is widely seen as the proudest moment in the history of Britain’s Labour Party.

The NHS was established in 1948 as a free-at-the-point-of-service health care system available to all Britons “from the cradle to the grave.”

As well as being its crowning glory, the NHS is also the weapon of choice for any Labour Party in taking on the Conservatives, who have long struggled to gain public trust in their stewardship of the much-loved institution.

Corbyn has accused Johnson of putting the service system “up for sale” in any trade deal with US President Donald Trump.

Also read: Britain Prepares For an Election That Is Unlikely to Stop Brexit

Indeed, the emergence of a photo of a four-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia sleeping on a pile of coats on the floor of an NHS hospital precipitated a potentially damaging campaign moment for the Tories.

When confronted with the image on a journalist’s smartphone, Johnson avoided making a comment and hid the phone in his pocket — a response that was criticized as clumsy and lacking in empathy.

The Liberal Democrats have promised to fund an increase in health spending with a slight rise in income tax to tackle workforce shortages and to invest in mental health.

It’s the economy, stupid

The Conservative Party has long claimed to be the most competent on the economy.

This time around, the party wants to invest in public services, while also cutting taxes.

File Photo: A woman counts U.S. dollar bills at her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 28, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Marcos Brindicci/File Photo

It promises that Brexit provides an opportunity to “unleash Britain’s potential” by ending uncertainty and allowing investment to flow into the UK economy. The party says Brexit can be an economic success, despite forecasts from the government’s own treasury that the UK will be poorer under any form of exit from the EU.

Labour promises to “rewrite the rules of the economy so it works for everyone — not just the billionaires” with policies of wealth distribution and renationalization. It says any Labour Brexit will put jobs first and foremost, avoiding potential economic damage.

Both of the main parties’ manifestos make no sense economically, according to Britain’s Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The independent think tank says a hard Brexit under the Conservatives would pose a real risk to the UK economy. Meanwhile, it said, Labour’s ambitious spending plans while increasing taxes only for the top 5% of the population didn’t add up.

Only the Liberal Democrats plans — for modest tax rises and public spending increases — were singled out for praise by the IFS. The institute also predicted a growth dividend of 2% if the party’s policy of canceling Brexit was enacted.

Crime and sentencing back in focus

Police numbers have been a key issue in the campaign, with the Conservatives saying they would put 20,000 more police onto the street.

The stabbings at London Bridge brought up questions around the sentencing of people convicted of terror offenses. Photo: Reuters

Critics were quick to point out that there has been a cut of roughly the same in the police force — between 19,000 and 22,000 — since the Tories came to power in 2010.

Labour blames an increase in violent crime on the number of police taken off the street and cuts to other services. It promises to invest in “policing to prevent crime and make our communities safer” and also to address “the causes of crime.”

The Conservatives — normally seen as the party of law and order — have also pledged “tougher sentencing for the worst offenders.”

Crime and sentencing were always bubbling away at the back of this election campaign, but the London Bridge attack at the end of November put it back in the spotlight. The perpetrator of the attack was released halfway through his sentence under a law introduced by the last Labour government. This was seized upon by Johnson, who called for an end to automatic early releases as well as the complete end of release on license for people convicted of terror offenses.

Greener on the other side

Everyone likes trees, so a promise to plant more of them is unlikely to harm any party’s electoral chances. The election has seen parties of most political hues promising to plant ever-increasing numbers.

The Conservatives promise 30 million a year, the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party (SNP) 60 million, the Greens 70 million and Labour 100 million.

On emissions, the Conservatives also have the least ambitious target — to become carbon neutral by 2050. The Liberal Democrats are aiming for 2045, while Labour is looking at zero net emissions by the mid-2030s.

Labour is hoping to attract young people, for whom the environment is a touchstone issue, to vote for it. The party is promising a “green industrial revolution,” creating eco-friendly jobs in the industry, transport, energy, and agriculture as a key plank of its manifesto.

Also read: Britain Investigating Whether Leaked Trade Papers Were Hacked

The Conservatives say they’ll use Brexit as an opportunity to protect and restore the natural environment after Britain leaves the EU. It’s unclear why this is not possible within the bloc.

Surprisingly, Labour came out top in a survey of policies by the environmental group Friends of the Earth — ahead even of the Greens.

A similar survey of commitments by Greenpeace put the Greens top with Labour in second place. The Liberal Democrats were third with the Conservatives in sixth place, behind Wales’ national party Plaid Cymru and the SNP.

State of the union

The integrity of the United Kingdom is an issue all over again. A potential north-south break up is on the cards with renewed calls for a Scottish independence referendum.

Although a 2014 referendum about whether Scotland should be independent was deemed a once-in-a-generation event, things have changed.

The major argument against breaking up the more than three-centuries-old union was that it would leave Scotland outside the European Union. Brexit changed all that. Most voters north of the border wanted to stay in the EU, and now feel they are being pulled out of the bloc against their will.

Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon has said she is keen for another independence referendum to be held, and it could be the price of any coalition or confidence-and-supply arrangement with Labour.

While the issue is a particularly hot topic in Scotland — where it could help the Conservatives — it’s also likely to influence some voters in the rest of the UK. Boris Johnson has been keen to link Labour and the SNP, and a possible “return to division and uncertainty.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn is pointing at the potential of an east-west split, with the likelihood of future customs declarations and border checks between Britain and Northern Ireland under Johnson’s Brexit deal.

The article was originally published on DW. You can read it here.

Britain Prepares For an Election That Is Unlikely to Stop Brexit

Perhaps the best chance of pro-referendum parties stopping a pro-Brexit Conservative victory would be if there was a significant increase in tactical voting.

With four days to go before Britain’s national election, Brexit supporters must feel heartened.

The polls show the Conservatives holding a firm and significant lead over their main Labour competitors, though the percentages are tightening a little.

It seems that the Conservative leader, Boris Johnson’s widely repeated slogan “Get Brexit done” has pulled enough former Labour, but pro-Brexit, voters, into the arms of the Conservative party, something that before 2016, and the Brexit referendum, could barely have been imagined. This will result in many North of England, previously Labour seats, turning Tory.

The left-right ideological split is for many no longer the most significant fissure in British politics – with the political party’s position on Brexit becoming the decisive factor in determining their support.

There may still be a majority of people in Britain against Brexit, but the “pro-Remain” parties – or at least the pro-referendum ones, since it is not entirely clear where Labour stands on the Brexit issue – have split this Remain vote.

This has gone alongside the pro-Brexit vote becoming more unified around the Conservative party with Nigel Farage’s Brexit party unlikely now to win more than a few percentage of the vote and one or two seats at the very most.

These two tendencies will allow the Conservative party to win through the middle in many seats.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during the debate on the early parliamentary election bill at the House of Commons in London, Britain, October 29, 2019. Photo: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via Reuters

The Conservative party will also do much better in pro-Remain Scotland than many had originally predicted, where Scottish independence – rather than Brexit– has become a decisive issue. The pro-Remain and pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party has campaigned on a position of stopping Brexit and getting an independence referendum through leveraging Labour were there to be a hung parliament. This has resulted in many pro-Remain but anti-independence Scots holding their nose deciding to vote for the pro-unionist Conservatives, to prevent the possibility of a new referendum. There will, as a result, be no Conservative wipeout in Scotland

When one looks back at this election, the prime responsibility for the likely victory of the pro-Brexit Conservatives will be placed upon the inability of the labour and the liberal democratic party to have forged some kind of pact or agreement to harness a unified anti-Brexit vote.

There are, of course, other reasons for Labour’s likely poor showing. The stigma of the unrelenting attacks criticising Jeremy Corbyn for anti-Semitism have undoubtedly caused significant problems for Labour, resulting in him being the most unpopular opposition leader. For a politician who all his life has been strongly on the side of anti-racism, this is perhaps an unlikely position for him to be in. However, it is clear that that labour party failed to deal quickly enough with a small minority of hard-left members who allowed their anti-Israel positions to transform into language that could be seen, and sometimes clearly was, as anti-Semitic.

And whilst the Labour Party’s manifesto, with its eye-popping proposed increases in investments in the NHS, social services and other parts of British society will have been popular to many, it lack of costing will have felt unrealistic to many erstwhile supporters.

Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn shows a document during a news conference in London, Britain December 6, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman

It is not that Boris Johnson is that much more popular. But the many criticisms against him of lying, duplicity, and anti-Muslim racism have tended to wash off him more easily, and he is seen by many as a charming rogue.

Of course in the last few days of the election campaign, it is still possible that the Tory support may slip. Polls could be wrong, failing for example to have taken proper account of the surge of voter registration amongst young voters.

But perhaps the best chance that the pro-referendum parties could still stop a pro-Brexit Conservative victory would be if there was a significant increase in tactical voting so that liberal voters supported the Labour party in seats where they are more likely to defeat a Conservative candidate and vice-versa.

There are signs that tactical voting could have a real impact in many seats. There are many new websites advising voters of certain constituencies how best to vote tactically to stop the Conservatives getting an overall victory. In fact, in Boris Johnson’s own Uxbridge seat, which he held with only a relatively small majority in the last election, strong tactical voting by liberals eager to decapitate the Conservative party, could vote Labour to unseat him.

There is now no chance that the Labour party can get a majority and all that pro-referendum parties can play for now is a hung parliament without a Conservative majority – but one must be cautious in thinking that tactical voting alone could be sufficient to achieve this aim.

A depressing night on Thursday looms for those who hoped that an election could result in stopping Brexit.

David Bergman is a journalist who also runs the Bangladesh Politico blog. He happens to be married to one of the lawyers representing Shahidul Alam. Follow him on Twitter @davidbangladesh.

EU Likely to Agree to Brexit Delay as Boris Johnson Pushes For Election

Brexit has already been delayed twice – from March 29 and April 12 – after Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, failed to get her deal through the British parliament.

Brussels: The European Union is likely to agree a 3-month flexible Brexit delay on Monday as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushes for an election after he was forced by his opponents to request an extension he had pledged he would never ask for.

Just three days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on October 31 at 2300 GMT, Brexit is hanging in the balance as British politicians are no closer to reaching a consensus on how, when or even if the divorce should take place.

Johnson, who won the top job by pledging – “do or die” – to deliver Brexit on October 31, was forced by opponents to request a delay after he was defeated in parliament over the sequencing of the ratification of his divorce deal.

The 27 European Union countries that will remain after Brexit hope to agree on Monday to delay Britain’s divorce until Jan. 31 with an earlier departure possible should the factious UK parliament ratify their separation deal, sources said.

Diplomatic sources told Reuters the bloc’s 27 EU ambassadors would meet at 0900 GMT on Monday in Brussels to agree on the three-month delay from the current Brexit date of October 31.

Also Read: ‘Traitors, Betrayal, Surrender’: British Politics Word War Fuels Division

“There will most likely be an agreement on Monday morning between the 27 on extension until January 31,” said a source close to French President Emmanuel Macron. “The prospect of elections has strengthened significantly over the weekend.”

Brexit has already been delayed twice – from March 29 and April 12 – after Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, failed to get her deal through the British parliament.

The source close to Macron stressed that the third Brexit delay would come with conditions, including a refusal to renegotiate the divorce agreement and giving a green light to other EU countries to meet without Britain to discuss the bloc’s future.

With the British political system still deadlocked over Brexit, Johnson is demanding parliament approve an election on Dec. 12 in return for having more time to approve his deal.

But he needs the support of two-thirds of parliament’s 650 lawmakers for a new election. A vote is due in parliament later on Monday.

The latest delay plan envisages that Britain could be out on Dec. 1 or Jan. 1 should parliament ratify the agreement in November or December, respectively, according to diplomats who deal with Brexit in Brussels.

The EU will state that the extension, the third granted so Britain can sort out its departure, will not be used to renegotiate the divorce treaty again and that London should not impede other essential work by the EU on projects from budgets to climate policies.

(Reuters)

Scottish Politicians Use Orwell’s Words to Attack Adversaries

The leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson cited Orwell saying that “Nationalism […] is power-hunger tempered by self-deception”.

Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland, poses for photographers outside the Houses of Parliament in central London, Britain May 15, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

Edinburgh: The leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson used British writer George Orwell, a darling of the left, to attack her Scottish nationalist adversaries on Monday, saying no one party could purport to be the authentic voice of the nation.

“We must remain vigilant against nationalisms’ seductive simplicities – and always be ready to embrace the complex, the difficult, the other,” said Davidson.

Davidson, an English literature graduate, was speaking as the first Conservative chosen to deliver the lecture associated with the Orwell prize in London, which celebrates honest writing and reporting. She joked that the writer himself would not have approved.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has dominated politics north of the border for the last decade and is again looking to take the majority of Scottish seats in next month’s national election.

Davidson’s Conservative party, which holds just one seat in Scotland, has campaigned almost exclusively on one issue – keeping the nation as part of the UK.

The party has posted leaflets saying “Scotland doesn’t need or want another independence referendum” across the country and polls show them winning more seats in the election than they have for decades.

While political parties across Britain had at different times claimed to have a monopoly on the national mood, “the modern SNP has made this technique its own,” she said.

Davidson cited Orwell saying that “Nationalism […] is power-hunger tempered by self-deception”, adding “Amen to that.”The leader of her party in Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May, said she called an election on June 8 to strengthen her hand in talks to take Britain out of the European Union.

Most voters in Scotland, one of the UK’s four nations, wanted to stay in the EU and the battle between the parties has become increasingly bitter.

The pro-independence SNP retorted that Davidson was guilty of “doublethink”, the term Orwell used in his novel “1984” to describe a willingness to accept contradictory arguments due to political indoctrination.

“It is Orwellian to lecture others on nationalism when she’s the one who drapes herself in a flag and drives around in a tank,” said SNP candidate for Edinburgh North and Leith, Deidre Brock, referring to a photo shoot in which Davidson posed in a British army tank and a Union Jack, the symbol of British unity.

Davidson argued that nationalism was part of the Scottish psyche, and it would be hypocritical not to admit as much, but defended patriotism as inclusive and welcoming of plurality.

“Nationalism runs deep in Scotland – particularly when, as is often the case, your football or rugby team is once again getting hammered,” she joked.

“Indeed, on such occasions, I am sorry to have to report that even the most passionate pro-Union Scot may have questioned the fortune and parentage of large swathes of the English population.”