Rishi Sunak has been beaten – more narrowly than many had expected – by Liz Truss to become leader of Britain’s Conservative Party and the country’s fourth prime minister in six years.
Truss won 81,326 votes against Sunak’s 60,399, a majority of approximately 21,000, which is less of a landslide than recent media commentary has suggested. It means that she has less authority over MPs, who originally backed Sunak, and less support among party members than she would have wished.
The fact that only about 11,000 voters need to have switched sides to make Sunak the winner reflects the result of five televised “hustings” where he clearly won over the audiences with his willingness and ability to give clear-cut answers. Truss kept her replies vague and did not develop her ideas.
It is fair to conclude that if more party members had known more about Sunak when they voted over the past month, the result might have been different.
It looks likely that there will be an historic mix of ethnic backgrounds in Truss’s cabinet. If media forecasts are correct, the three top Cabinet posts will go to Kwasi Kwarteng, whose parents come from Ghana, as chancellor of the exchequer; James Cleverly with a British father and Sierra Leone mother as foreign secretary; and Suella Braverman with Kenyan Indian and Mauritian parents as home secretary.
Also probably included will be Nadhim Zahawi, the current (temporary) Iraqi-origin chancellor, who may go back to his old role as health secretary. There might also be a job for Pakistan-origin Sajid Javed, one-time chancellor and later health secretary, who triggered Boris Johnson’s exit as prime minister when he resigned in July, quickly followed by Sunak.
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss stand on the stage before taking part in the BBC Conservative party leadership debate at Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Britain, July 25, 2022. Photo: Jacob King/Pool via Reuters
The expected ethnic aspect at the top of the Cabinet reflects the growing social mix of British society. It far exceeds the 15% of the UK population who come from a minority ethnic background, while in parliament there are currently 65 MPs from those backgrounds, just 10% of the total (an increase of 25% over the 2017 general election).
There will always be suggestions that Sunak lost because of his Indian origins, and there may be something in that because Conservative Party traditionalist members are almost certainly less likely to want a non-white person as prime minister than the general electorate.
The main reason however is that Truss’s unwavering true blue tax-cutting rhetoric, and developing a right-wing image as an experienced politician, appealed in the tortuous month-long election campaign to more grassroots party members.
Sunak appeared as a super-efficient well-groomed policy manager. He knew exactly how to run the country during an economic crisis and had an answer to every contingency, something Truss carefully avoided. He shunned quick popular tax cuts.
It all seemed rather unreal because, while Britain faced news of escalating crises with rocketing energy prices and inflation, plus a drought and the prospect of water shortages, the two contestants fought over their primary differences – Truss’s tax cuts that in reality will worsen inflation and scarcely help the poorest and most destitute, while Sunak condemned that as lunacy and proposed interventionist policies that Truss will now be forced to adopt.
Meanwhile, the government became sterile and Johnson enjoyed his final weeks in power with jaunts that included flying in a jet fighter, joining a dawn police raid, and announcing distant nuclear power plans. He even suggested people should buy a new £20 efficient kitchen kettle to save £10 a year on their electricity bills. That was his solution for families facing rocketing energy bills that have just risen from an average of around £2,000 a year to over £3,400 and are then forecast to nearly double to more than £6,000 in six months’ time.
Sunak’s defeat compares with the voting among Conservative MPs in July where he led Truss with 137 votes to her 113. Those figures probably reflected Truss’s lack of popularity among MPs, many of whom will have welcomed Sunak’s role in triggering the 50 or so Cabinet resignations that led to Boris Johnson’s downfall.
The grassroots party members knew him less well and only gradually realised his potential. Nearly half of them wish Johnson was still prime minister according to opinion polls, so will have resented Sunak’s role. At the start of the campaign, his position was undermined by heavy criticism from Truss’s supporters for being ‘disloyal’ to Johnson – he replied that policy and other differences became too great for him to remain in the cabinet.
Then there was the issue of his immense family wealth totalling some £730m, mainly stemming from his wife Akshata – daughter of Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, one of India’s three leading IT companies. Akshata, who was little known before the campaign started, had retained non-domicile status and used it to escape some £20 million in taxes to the UK. During the campaign, however, she emerged as a visible and enthusiastic supporter.
Truss had traditional Conservative support
Sunak also had a much weaker political and policy team around him than Truss, who managed to garner traditional Conservative support, though that seemed less evident in the more prosperous south of the country than in the north. She quite quickly gained personal confidence, keeping the debate focussed on her popular tax cuts and rejecting interventionist policies that she is now likely to announce.
She traded heavily on her apparently poor northern childhood roots in order to distinguish herself both from Sunak’s childhood in Hampshire, a well-off county in the south, and from his immense wealth. In fact, they both come from professional middle-class families – Truss’s father was a mathematics professor at Leeds University and her mother was a nurse and teacher, while Sunak’s East African Indian-origin father was a doctor and mother a pharmacist.
Truss now faces a series of crises that need immediate attention. They will test her reputation for abrasiveness and whether she is uncharacteristically willing to consult and be flexible.
On the economy, there is double-digit inflation and a cost of living crisis with public finances heavily stretched, rising debt and a prospect of a long recession. That worsened this morning with gas prices rising sharply after Russia banned supplies to Europe.
Foreign policy issues include Ukraine, where Johnson – backed by Truss as foreign secretary – led the toughest response to the Russian invasion, and the West’s simmering confrontation with China. Unresolved problems stemming from Brexit are led by a confrontation with the European Union over trade barriers that threaten stability in Northern Ireland, and there is the question of Scotland’s independence that would cripple the United Kingdom. On all of these issues, Truss has till now struck confrontational stances that would not ease the crises.
Boris Johnson looks on during a visit with members of the Thames Valley Police, at Milton Keynes Police Station in Milton Keynes, Britain, August 31, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Andrew Boyers/Pool
A rash of trade union strikes
But the subject that scarcely figured in the leadership election debates is serious labour unrest that looks like leading to the worst rash of trade union strikes since the 1970s. The railways are being hit with a series of crippling one-day stoppages that have also hit bus services and the country’s largest port. Other groups threatening action include teachers, lawyers, ambulance drivers, refuse collectors, and telecommunication and airport workers.
Both Truss and Sunak have aired confrontational policies to restrict public service workers’ freedom to strike. If Truss stays on that track, without introducing attempts at labour conciliation that have been absent under Johnson, she could face an early showdown with the unions this winter. Co-ordinated action is due to be debated at the annual Trades Union Congress next week.
Meanwhile, Johnson still harbours hopes of returning as prime minister. There are even reports that MPs who support him are thinking of triggering a new leadership crisis before the end of the year.
Sunak of course must be regretting today that it is Truss who will be visiting the Queen on Tuesday to be invited to form a new government. But, given the scale of the immediate crises, he can console himself with the thought that the prime minister’s post might be up for grabs again in two years’ time.
