UK Conservative Party

UK: Sunak Faces Allegations of Cover Up After Refusing to Handover Chats to COVID Inquiry

The government claims the records are “unambiguously irrelevant” to the official investigation of how ministers and officials handled the coronavirus epidemic.

New Delhi: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration has refused a demand from the government-appointed COVID-19 inquiry to hand over former prime minister Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and pandemic diaries, setting off allegations of cover-up and obstruction.

Officials on Thursday, June 1, confirmed a judicial review will be launched in the wake of demands from Heather Hallett, the chairman of the investigation, for the release of unredacted messages sent by Boris Johnson during the time of the pandemic, arguing it should not have to hand over irrelevant material. A preliminary hearing is planned on Tuesday, according to an email from a representative for the investigation.

Given that the sought records are also likely to contain personal correspondence between Sunak – who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time – and Johnson, this tactic will make the current UK prime minister more susceptible to claims that he is trying to conceal important information.

However, the Labour Party has accused the government of a “cover-up” as it emerged the Cabinet Office will take the COVID-19 inquiry to court. Angela Rayner, the deputy labour leader, said: “While the rest of the country is focused on the cost-of-living crisis, Rishi Sunak is hopelessly distracted with legal ploys to obstruct the COVID inquiry in a desperate attempt to withhold evidence.”

“After 13 years of Tory scandal, these latest smoke-and-mirror tactics serve only to undermine the COVID inquiry. The public deserves answers, not another cover-up,” she said.

Sunak and Johnson were both fined by the police in 2022 for violating the government’s lockdown rules by attending “alcohol-fuelled parties” – even as ordinary citizens could not attend funerals or visit dying family members in hospitals.

According to Bloomberg, the government’s top lawyer James Eadie advised the Sunak administration not to share information with the inquiry “by default” and “block the release of ‘politically sensitive’ material about the pandemic”.

The report adds that though the Tories maintain that the government’s roll out of vaccines before any other country ended lockdowns and allowed the economy to re-open, it “ignores more controversial aspects, including testing shortages, allegations of corruption and the deaths of thousands of older Britons in care homes despite government assurances that measures were in place to protect them”.

Johnson also missed early emergency meetings about how the UK should respond to the coronavirus crisis, while Sunak’s “Eat Out to Help Out” programme encouraging people back into restaurants in the summer of 2020 may have helped the virus spread, according to experts.

Boris Johnson. Photo: Andrew Parsons, No 10 Downing Street/Flickr CC BY NC ND 2.0

‘Unambiguously irrelevant’

The government claims the records are “unambiguously irrelevant” to the official investigation of how ministers and officials handled the coronavirus epidemic, refusing to provide them for days. But Sunak has been pressured to comply by opposition politicians, victims’ relatives, medical professionals, and even some members of his own Conservative Party.

However, the Cabinet Office said it was launching court proceedings “with regret” and insisted Hallett’s demands would lead to an “absurd” scenario where “unambiguously irrelevant” material sent and received by ministers was shared.

Sunak told reporters he was “confident” in the government’s stance just before the disclosure deadline on Thursday. The WhatsApp texts submitted by Johnson only cover the time following May 2021, according to the Cabinet Office’s proposal. In March 2020, the first lockdown began.

Meanwhile, Sunak’s legal bid to prevent the COVID-19 inquiry from obtaining WhatsApp messages sent by Boris Johnson to government colleagues during the pandemic is likely to fail, a minister has admitted.

Science minister George Freeman, appearing on BBC Question Time, insisted the Cabinet Office decision to launch judicial review proceedings was not a “cynical waste of time” but admitted he thought the prospect of success is unlikely.

He agreed that in principle advice to ministers should not be made public, but added that he saw no reason why the inquiry should not be able to see Johnson’s WhatsApp chats and notebooks, and check them for anything it deems relevant.

Johnson offered to share the unredacted data with the investigation chair in a letter he sent on Thursday evening, seemingly in an effort to imply Sunak wasn’t being completely forthcoming. That would include texts from the beginning of the epidemic kept on an outdated gadget that had been turned off on security advice, his spokesperson added.

Johnson’s spokesperson added: “He has written to the Cabinet Office asking whether security and technical support can be given so that content can be retrieved without compromising security.”

British lawmakers, authorities, and media prefer to communicate using WhatsApp. Often, the tone is open or informal, which might be awkward. The administration is concerned about what Johnson’s complete, undisclosed discussions may reveal and how they may affect the Conservative Party’s prospects in the next national elections.

Nadhim Zahawi Sacked: Today’s Tory Scandals Are Similar to 1990s Sleaze Stories

After days of mounting criticism, Sunak finally sacked Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi’s over his failure to pay what appears to have been a tax bill of millions.

The 1990s are everywhere right now. From the fashion trends making a comeback in 2023 (I’m told), to the hotly anticipated return of the flashback mystery-box thriller Yellowjackets, it’s starting to feel like the millennium never happened. And where pop culture leads, politics inevitably follows.

Events swirling around UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are more than a little reminiscent of the sleaze that dogged John Major’s Conservative government for most of his tenure between 1992 and 1997. So much so that I was recently reminded of a passage written by political scientist Tim Bale:

“That he won a leadership contest could do nothing to boost the Conservative Party’s popularity. His tendency to try to conciliate all sides of an increasingly factionalised parliamentary party bought him time, during which he hoped – in vain – that economic recovery would bring voters back to the Tory fold. But it also earned him widespread contempt inside the party and a reputation for fudging and weakness outside it.”

If you thought Bale was writing about Rishi Sunak here, you’d be forgiven. It is in fact a description of Major. Like Sunak, he took power after a popular leader largely seen as electoral gold dust lost their lustre (we’ll brush over the Liz Truss experiment here). He was also constantly fighting fires related to standards, made much worse by the way in which he set out his governing agenda.

In 1993, Major announced his intention to lead the UK “back to basics” by focusing on the “traditional values” of “self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family”. He had been speaking about the whole country but his words came back to haunt him over and over as revelations about the financial and personal dealings of his MPs came to light.

After days of mounting criticism, Sunak finally sacked Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi over his failure to pay what appears to have been a tax bill of millions. This is the scandal currently plaguing Sunak most insistently. But his predecessor Boris Johnson’s connection with BBC chairman Richard Sharp has caused no small amount of trouble as well. Both matters predate Sunak’s time in office, and are somewhat out of his control but nevertheless show the bind he is in.

There is longstanding research that shows that there are logics of appropriate behaviour in society. And that these logics of what is (and is not) considered alright differ between people, countries and contexts.

So, as I have shown in my research on money in politics, different countries have different understandings of what acceptable levels of donation are. Other researchers have highlighted that sex scandals are much more likely to be an issue for British people than French people, for example. A snap poll taken almost a full week before Sunak made a decision about Zahawi showed a majority thought the chairman should lose his job. Another poll taken around the same time saw 75% of respondents say they think members of parliament should publish their tax returns.

Part of Sunak’s pitch on the steps of Downing Street when he first took office was to bring integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of his government after the wayward Boris Johnson years. The problem for Sunak is that it makes him all the more at risk from questions of ethics and propriety than his predecessor.

Boris Johnson was the “greased piglet” of UK politics. He was born slippy. So an amount of misbehaviour was baked into the cake (until it wasn’t).

Tolerance for Rishi Sunak, when it comes to standards issues, is simply much lower. He is far more at risk from scandal and sleaze than Johnson was, and even more so after tying his premiership to it.

John Major: back to basics

What is happening in British politics in 2023 is therefore similar to the 1990s in more than just one way. The allegations themselves are deeply resonant of course, but the way Sunak has been compromised is also similar. For Major, his “back to basics” pledge simply became a stick to beat him with during the many sleaze scandals that fell onto his lap.

Sunak will be aware that the same could easily become true for him. Even if the specific issues with Zahawi and Johnson are soon forgotten, future scandals are practically written into Sunak’s schedule over the next few months.

In the coming weeks, we will see the release of Johnson’s resignation honours, which is said to be stuffed with people who have done him favours, often of the financial kind, over the years. A parliamentary inquiry into whether Johnson misled parliament over partygate is also about to begin, reminding everyone of the behaviour that triggered the beginning of the end for his government – and potentially of Sunak’s own police fine for breaking lockdown rules.

Rishi Sunak and Nadhim Zahawi. Photo: No 10/Flickr CC BY 2.0

It’s not the 90s for Labour

A pessimist, then, would say that the next election will mark the end of the road for Sunak, and the Conservative party in power. Much like Major was effectively leading a zombie government to inevitable defeat in 1997, Sunak appears to have no distance left to run.

But, despite the numerous historic parallels, there’s an important difference. The Labour opposition has much more work to do now than it did during the final Major years, and will be electioneering with a leader much less popular than Tony Blair. Remember, Labour suffered a catastrophic defeat in 2019, which puts them quite significantly on the back foot leading into the next election.

The current political landscape, of course, should take precedence. But history can tell us a lot about the current travails of Rishi Sunak, and how we might expect the next few years to shake out.

And, while there’s certainly more than a whiff of the 1990s about this Conservative government, the key difference is its larger majority. Of all the small things that might decide the next election, that’s one thing we should never forget.

Sam Power, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Sussex.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Six Weeks in and Rishi Sunak Seems to Be on a Losing Wicket

Inflation, strikes and opinion polls showing his party’s unpopularity indicate that the next election could spell the end of Conservatives’ long run in office.

Six weeks is a very short time to judge a new prime minister’s performance. But part of Rishi Sunak’s problem is that he doesn’t have much time. The countdown clock to Britain’s next general election – due no later than two years from now – is already ticking loudly. And if the governing Conservatives can’t improve on their current performance, they will not only be swept out of power but humbled electorally in much the same manner as India’s Congress.

So how’s the new boy – and at 42, there is a boy-ish quality about him – doing so far? Well, from one vantage point, not too bad. Interest rates have started to settle down, the financial markets have been reassured and a measure of stability has returned to government economic policy. The painful memory of Liz Truss’s chaotically incompetent seven weeks in office is starting to fade.

Sunak gives every impression of being comfortable in power. He comes across as both competent and honest – and it’s a while since people here have been able to say that of a prime minister – and has stayed cheerfully upbeat in the face of a relentless barrage of bad news. Inflation remains painfully high at over 10%; wages are not rising at the same rate, which means that most people are poorer; nurses, train drivers and postal workers are staging strikes to demand higher pay; and the tax increases and public spending cuts which Sunak is introducing to help balance the government’s books are hardly going to make him more popular.

It’s hard to imagine how the Conservatives’ standing is going to improve amid such a profound cost of living crisis. Bill Clinton’s famous political adage – ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ – works both ways. If the economy tanks on your watch, you go down with it.

So in party terms, the verdict so far on Sunak would have to be, not too good. The Conservatives have been in power since 2010 and have won four successive general elections. They are not used to coming second. They have also – having summarily despatched two serving prime ministers so far this year – become habitually mutinous.

Sunak’s government is facing rebellions from backbench MPs on issues as varied as easing planning laws to allow more houses to be built, to promoting on-shore wind turbines to ease reliance on fossil fuels. The new prime minister has become accustomed to giving way gracefully. He declared he was too busy to go to the climate change conference in Egypt; his MPs thought that was a mistake; Mr Sunak duly caught the plane to Cairo. There have been other about-turns. You could say that’s simply political pragmatism, but cumulatively they start to erode a leader’s credibility.

Also read: How Crucial a Factor Was Race in Rishi Sunak’s Rise?

Opinion polls, of course, are just that – a snapshot of political opinion, and not a forecast of who will win the next election. But the recent polls have been staggeringly bad for Sunak. The best poll since he took office, from the Conservatives’ point of view, put the party 14 points behind the Labour opposition; the worst polls suggest a gap of more than double that. This points to something more than mid-term unpopularity. The swashbuckling dishonesty of Boris Johnson and the wilful incompetence of Liz Truss have deeply damaged the Conservative brand.

Last week, we had the first Parliamentary by-election of the Sunak era. It was in a seat that the Conservatives had no real chance of winning. But the party didn’t just lose – it got its lowest share of the vote in the constituency since 1832. Not 1932, but 1832.

There are clear signs that Conservatives themselves have begun to give up hope of winning the next election. Although there’s still two years to go (Sunak could hold an election earlier but given all his difficulties that is vanishingly unlikely) the party is confirming its choice of candidates. And there’s been a spate of sitting Conservative MPs who have announced they will not stand again.

These are not simply the grey-haired veterans, but some of the party’s rising stars. Sajid Javid, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and a heavy-hitter, has announced he’s moving away from politics; he’s 52. Chloe Smith, another former minister and also highly regarded, is standing down too; she’s 40. Dehenna Davison, an outspoken young Conservative MP seen until a few days ago as on the brink of political stardom, has also announced she won’t contest the next election; she’s 29.

Whatever the reasons offered, most believe that these MPs are standing down either because they are convinced they will lose their seats – or if they win, they will face the frustration of being in opposition, perhaps for a long time.

Nothing is certain in politics. The Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, is seen as decent and competent, but cautious and worse, dull, too. It’s just possible that, in an increasingly presidential style of electioneering, Sunak will convince the voters that however tough things are, they are better sticking with him.

But the much more widely held view is that we are now witnessing a once-in-a-generation shift in political loyalties, where a governing party is seen as tired, discredited and unworthy of public trust. Once that shift takes hold, there’s little a ruling party can do to avoid defeat by an innings and more. There’s little doubt that Sunak will remain the team captain for the next couple of years, but he is on a losing wicket.

Also read: Claiming Rishi Sunak as One of Our Own Is Totally Misplaced

It was just such a pendulum swing back in 1997 which ended 18 years of Conservative rule and saw Labour, initially under Tony Blair, take power for 13 years.

That’s the thing about democracies. The electoral pendulum does swing back; there’s no golden rule about when and how, but it does. Eventually.

Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC India Correspondent and also reported for the BBC on British politics.

New PM Rishi Sunak Pledges To Fix Britain’s Many Problems

He warned that difficult decisions lay ahead as he looks to cut public spending and fix the “mistakes” that were made by Liz Truss during her short and chaotic tenure in Downing Street.

London: Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday he was not daunted by the scale of the challenge as he became Britain’s third prime minister in two months, pledging to lead the country through an economic crisis and rebuild trust in politics.

The 42-year-old former hedge fund boss, who has only been in elected politics for seven years, has been tasked with bringing an end to the political infighting and radical changes in policy that have horrified investors and alarmed international allies.

He warned that difficult decisions lay ahead as he looks to cut public spending and fix the “mistakes” that were made by Liz Truss during her short and chaotic tenure in Downing Street, just as the country slides into a recession.

“I fully appreciate how hard things are,” he said outside the prime minister’s residence at Downing Street where he shunned the normal tradition of standing beside his family and cheering political supporters.

“I understand too that I have work to do to restore trust, after all that has happened. All I can say is that I am not daunted. I know the high office I have accepted and I hope to live up to its demands.”

Sunak, one of the richest men in parliament, is expected to slash spending to plug an estimated 40 billion pound ($45 billion) hole in the public finances created by an economic slowdown, higher borrowing costs and an energy support scheme.

With his party’s popularity in freefall, he will face growing calls for an election if he ditches too many of the promises that helped elect the Conservative Party in 2019, when then leader Boris Johnson pledged to invest heavily.

Economists and investors have welcomed Sunak’s appointment – Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said the adults had taken charge again – but they warn he has few options to fix the country’s finances when millions are battling a cost of living crunch.

Sunak, who ran the Treasury during the COVID-19 pandemic, promised to put economic stability and confidence at the heart of the agenda. “This will mean difficult decisions to come,” he said, shortly after he accepted King Charles’s request to form a government.

Sunak also vowed to put the public’s needs above politics, in recognition of the growing anger at Britain’s political class and the ideological battles that have raged ever since the historic 2016 vote to leave the European Union.

Workers heading towards London’s financial district said Sunak appeared to be the best of a bad bunch and while some wanted an election now others hoped he would stay until the next scheduled election, due by January 2025.

“I think he was competent, and that’s really what we should hope for at the moment,” said management consultant, James Eastbook, 43.

Financial turmoil

Britain’s youngest prime minister for more than 200 years and its first leader of colour, Sunak replaced Truss who resigned after 44 days following a “mini-budget” that sparked turmoil in financial markets.

He will now need to review all spending, including on politically sensitive areas such as health, education, defence, welfare and pensions.

As he made his first speech as prime minister, to the hundreds of journalists gathered in Downing Street, he struck a more sober tone than those of his predecessors, Truss and Johnson.

He paid tribute to Truss and said her plan to reignite economic growth had not been wrong, but he said mistakes were made: “And I have been elected as leader of my party and your prime minister, in part to fix them.”

As Truss left office, applauded by colleagues and staff, she struck a defiant tone and failed to apologise for the market turmoil that accompanied her seven weeks as prime minister, when the pound collapsed and borrowing and mortgage rates jumped.

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss gives her statement outside Number 10 Downing Street, London, Britain October 20, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Toby Melville

Sunak will now start forming his cabinet, with some Conservative lawmakers hoping he will include politicians from all wings of the party.

He is expected to retain Jeremy Hunt as finance minister after he helped calm volatile bond markets by ripping up most of Truss’s economic programme.

Investors will also want to know if Sunak still plans to publish a new budget alongside borrowing and growth forecasts on October 31, which would help inform the Bank of England’s interest rate decision on November 3.

Political machinations

Sunak, a Goldman Sachs analyst who only entered parliament in 2015, also faces a battle to keep the different factions of his warring party on side.

He was blamed by many Conservatives when he quit as finance minister in July, triggering a wider rebellion that brought down Johnson. Others have questioned how a multi-millionaire can lead the country when millions of people are struggling with surging food and energy bills.

“I think this decision sinks us as a party for the next election,” one Conservative lawmaker told Reuters.

Historian and political biographer Anthony Seldon said Sunak would also be constrained by the mistakes of his predecessor.

“There is no leeway on him being anything other than extraordinarily conservative and cautious,” he told Reuters.

Many politicians and officials abroad, having watched as a country once seen as a pillar of economic and political stability descended into brutal infighting, welcomed Sunak’s appointment.

Sunak, a Hindu, also becomes Britain’s first prime minister of Indian origin.

US President Joe Biden described it as a “groundbreaking milestone”, while leaders from India and elsewhere welcomed the news. Sunak’s billionaire father-in-law, N.R. Narayana Murthy, said he would serve the United Kingdom well. “We are proud of him and we wish him success,” the founder of software giant Infosys said in a statement.

A Looming Recession, High Inflation and Strikes Face the UK’s New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Faced with a massive list of urgent issues to tackle, he has pledged “there will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead”.

“Let’s see what an intelligent, young, multi cultural, economics-fluent leader can do for us,” said Nick, a contact of mine who is in his 40s, when it was clear that Rishi Sunak, 42, would become Britain’s third prime minister this year, the youngest for decades, and the first non-white occupant of 10, Downing Street.

Of Indian descent from a Punjabi family that emigrated first to Kenya and then the UK, Sunak is also the first Hindu prime minister – and the first to have worked for Goldman Sachs and have an MBA.
The news that he had won was officially announced at 2 pm London time on Monday or 6:30 pm in India, where it added to the celebrations as coloured lights were lit and firecrackers noisily let off across the country to mark Diwali. As happened when Kamala Harris became America’s vice president, Sunak’s rise is seen as proof of India’s growing importance internationally.

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, tweeted “Warmest congratulations @RishiSunak!” and looked forward to strengthening India-UK relations.

Sunak became party leader on Monday night and had a formal meeting with King Charles on Monday morning, who invited him to form a government as prime minister. He will then go to 10, Downing Street, one door away from No 11 – where he lived as Chancellor of the Exchequer for just over two years until he resigned in July, and will begin to appoint his cabinet.

He has a massive list of urgent issues to tackle and has pledged “there will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead”.

Financial and economic problems include a fiscal gap of some £40bn, an approaching recession, and a cost of living crisis with inflation around 10%, the highest for 40 years. That stems from Brexit and the Ukraine war’s rising energy costs, escalated by the right-wing economic agenda of Liz Truss, the outgoing prime minister. The national health service is failing to cope with demand and the public sector is facing shortages and a spate of wage-related strikes led by railway workers that could escalate into a confrontation between the government and trade unions.

Foreign policy issues include Ukraine, where Johnson and Truss (as foreign secretary) led one of the toughest responses to the Russian invasion, plus confrontations with China. Unresolved Brexit problems include legislation challenging trade barriers that threaten stability in Northern Ireland, and there is also the looming question of Scotland’s independence.

All recent prime ministers have failed the “do for us” test mentioned at the beginning of this article. Both Boris Johnson and David Cameron in different ways failed because they believed too much in their (Eton-educated) leadership gifts, while Theresa May could not handle the cut and thrust of politics and diplomacy. Truss, who defeated Sunak for the prime minister’s job last month, thought she could buck the markets and public opinion with right-wing tax and borrowing dreams that Sunak had correctly warned would cause economic chaos.

Also Read: As the UK Embraces Its Diversity, Indians Need to Ask Why India is Turning Its Back on Its Own

Projecting himself and his family

Those prime ministers had spent years in politics before entering 10, Downing Street, whereas Sunak only began in 2015 as member of parliament. This means that he is bringing a fresh approach, but he has much to learn about how to get the government machine to deliver on policies, and he also needs to learn how to project himself and his family.

As prime minister, he has to overcome the negative publicity burden of the wealth and privileges that he has enjoyed for years. He and his fashion designer wife Akshata are worth some £730m, thanks mostly to the wealth of her father, Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, one of India’s leading IT companies.

If he was more adept at politics, Sunak would in 2015, or soon after, have cancelled the US green card that he obtained when he worked at Goldman Sachs and as a hedge fund analyst. He would also have cancelled his wife’s UK non-domicile status as an Indian citizen, which saved her paying taxes totalling as much as £20m.

Both the green card and the tax became personal embarrassments earlier this year, as did a £3,500 suit he wore at a leadership meeting and his £500 Prada shoes worn on a construction site. He talked on television about how many types of bread his family enjoyed when many voters could not even afford one loaf, and he was building a large swimming pool in the garden of his elegant north Yorkshire country house when the plight of the poor was spreading across the country.

Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy in London, February 9, 2022. Photo: Tristan Fewings/Pool via Reuters

It looks as if he has learned from those mistakes. But he has critics among MPs and a larger proportion of the party membership, not least because he arguably triggered the mass cabinet resignations that led to Johnson’s downfall in July when he quit as chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister).

His right-wing credentials are also not as firm as some on the right would like, prompting a slanted Daily Telegraph headline last night that described him rather unfairly as “A man riddled with contradictions trying to shed his ‘slippery’ image”.

The article said that “not everyone knows what he truly stands for” on issues such as Brexit, which he supported, and the free market which he moved away from with state intervention and increased corporation tax as a result of the covid pandemic.

Strengths, weaknesses and challenges

On policy, Sunak is strong on the economy and financial markets because of his professional background and his experience as chancellor under Johnson. He will continue with the abandonment of Truss’s policies that was started by Jeremy Hunt, who became chancellor a week ago and is expected to stay. Sunak believes in low taxes and has said he would reduce the bottom rate of income tax from 20% to 16%, but only when prudent without fuelling inflation, perhaps in seven years’ time.

But he has absolutely no experience in foreign policy, international relations or national security, nor on vast swathes of domestic policy ranging from the national health service and home care, to the police, and transport.

When he appeared in public debates during his contest with Truss, however, he appeared as a fast-learning and efficient policy manager who was prepared to devise positive answers to problems without resorting to Truss-style tax cuts.

The hope now must be that he has not had to make too many promises to would-be cabinet ministers in order to obtain their support for his candidature – he eventually received nominations from 185 MPs. That success prompted his main rival Boris Johnson to withdraw two days ago, followed by Penny Mordaunt, currently the leader of the commons, who gave up just before the 2 pm deadline on Monday.

British Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt speaks at an event to launch her campaign to be the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister, in London, Britain July 13, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

On climate change, Sunak is likely to follow the trend set by Johnson and a pledge to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, a target Truss might have weakened. He has said he would make the UK energy independent by 2045 with increased power from offshore wind, rooftop solar and nuclear sources and improved home insulation – a key detail many politicians forget. It remains to be seen if he lifts the blockage put by Truss on King Charles, a devoted climate change activist, attending the Cop27 summit in Egypt next month.

He could face problems with the Conservative Party’s right-wing on strikes and law and order. Labour unrest, however, will not be solved with new laws that could escalate unrest and exacerbate economic problems.

There could also be a clash over a pending India-UK trade deal where former home secretary Suella Braverman opposed easing access to the UK for Indian students and key workers. Sunak is likely to back easier access because he has said he wants to make it easier for British students to travel and for companies to work together “because it’s not just a one-way relationship, it’s a two-way relationship, and that’s the type of change I want to bring”.

Sunak’s most pressing problem is to unite the party, which is riven by personal rivalries and policy differences. That will not be easy, but it is essential if it is to have any chance of winning the next general election – due in 2024. There will be calls from opposition parties for an immediate general election, but Sunak can probably ignore them if he can hold the party together to tackle what he described in his 84-second victory statement last night as “a profound economic challenge”.

Lawmakers Will Attempt to Oust UK PM Truss This Week

Britain, engulfed in a political crisis, has lost three prime ministers since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016.

Britain: British lawmakers will try to oust Prime Minister Liz Truss this week despite Downing Street’s warning that it could trigger a general election, the Daily Mail reported.

More than 100 members of parliament (MPs) belonging to the governing Conservative Party are ready to submit letters of no confidence in Truss to Graham Brady, the head of the Conservative Party’s committee which organises the leadership contest, the tabloid reported, quoting unnamed sources.

Britain, engulfed in a political crisis, has lost three prime ministers since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016.

The MPs will urge Brady to tell Truss that “her time is up” or to change the political party rules to allow an immediate vote of confidence in her leadership, the report said.

Graham is said to be resisting the move, arguing that the Truss, along with newly appointed Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, deserve a chance to set out economic strategy in a budget on October 31, the report added.

Separately, The Times reported that some lawmakers have held secret discussions on replacing Truss with a new leader.

Truss, who won the Conservative Party leadership last month after promising to slash taxes, is fighting for her political survival after ditching key parts of the programme.

The chaos has fuelled discontent in the party, which is falling behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls.

(Reuters)

UK Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng Sacked Over Tax Cut Fiasco

Kwarteng announced a new fiscal policy on September 23, delivering Truss’s vision for vast tax cuts and deregulation to try to shock the economy out of years of stagnant growth. However, it turned out to be a failure.

London: British Prime Minister Liz Truss fired her finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, shortly before she is expected to scrap parts of their economic package in a bid to survive the market and political turmoil gripping the country.

Kwarteng said he had resigned at Truss’s request after rushing back to London overnight from IMF meetings in Washington. Truss, in power for only 37 days, will hold a news conference later on Friday, Downing Street confirmed.

“You have asked me to stand aside as your Chancellor. I have accepted,” said his resignation letter to Truss, which Kwarteng published on Twitter.

British government bonds rallied further ahead of Truss’s statement, adding to their partial recovery since her government started looking for ways to balance the books after her unfunded tax cuts crushed UK asset values and drew international censure.

Kwarteng is the country’s shortest serving chancellor since 1970, and his successor will be the fourth finance minister in as many months in Britain, where millions are facing a cost of living crisis. The British finance minister with the shortest tenure died.

Kwarteng had announced a new fiscal policy on September 23, delivering Truss’s vision for vast tax cuts and deregulation to try to shock the economy out of years of stagnant growth.

But the response from markets was so ferocious that the Bank of England had to intervene to prevent pension funds from being caught up in the chaos, as borrowing and mortgage costs surged.

The duo has since been under mounting pressure to reverse course, as polls showed support for their Conservative Party had collapsed, prompting colleagues to openly discuss whether they should be replaced.

Having triggered a market rout, Truss now runs the risk of bringing the government down if she cannot find a package of public spending cuts and tax rises that can appease investors and get through any parliamentary vote in the House of Commons.

Her search for savings will be made harder by the fact the government has been cutting departmental budgets for years.

At the same time the Conservative Party’s discipline has all but broken down, fractured by infighting as it struggled first to agree a way to leave the European Union and then how to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and grow the economy.

“If you can’t get your budget through parliament you can’t govern,” Chris Bryant, a senior lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, said on Twitter. “This isn’t about u-turns, it’s about proper governance.”

Fighting for survival

Downing Street has so far declined to comment but Kwarteng had not been expected to appear at Truss’s news conference later on Friday, fuelling speculation about his future.

During his time in the United States Kwarteng had been told by the head of the International Monetary Fund of the importance of “policy coherence”, underlining how far Britain’s reputation for sound economic management and institutional stability had fallen.

Shortly before 11 am (10:00 GMT) Britain’s television news channels switched to carry live footage of a British Airways plane landing at Heathrow, carrying Kwarteng.

In Westminster, Truss was trying to find agreement with her cabinet ministers on a way to preserve her push for growth while also reassuring the markets and working out which of the measures could be supported by her lawmakers in parliament.

Rupert Harrison, a portfolio manager at Blackrock and once an adviser to former British finance minister George Osborne, said markets have now almost fully priced in a U-turn.

“(That) means if the U-turn doesn’t come markets will react badly,” he said on Twitter.

A Conservative Party lawmaker, who asked not to be named, said Truss’s economic policy had caused so much damage that investors may demand even deeper cuts to public spending as the price for their support.

“Everything’s possible at the moment,” said the lawmaker, who backed Sunak in the leadership race. “Problem is the markets have lost trust in the Conservative Party – and who can blame them?”

According to a source close to the prime minister, Truss is now in “listening mode” and inviting lawmakers to speak to her team about their concerns to gauge which parts of the programme they would support in parliament.

Credit Suisse economist Sonali Punhani said markets needed to see a credible fiscal plan, with the government needing to find around 60 billion pounds through tax cut U-turns and further spending cuts.

“It would be challenging to deliver the scale of these cuts, but for them to be credible, these need to be delivered sooner rather than in the latter part of the forecast,” Punhani said.

One policy that is expected to be reversed is their plan to hold corporation tax rates at 19%. That had formed a key part of their package after Sunak proposed increasing it to 25% when he was finance minister under Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson.

That could save 18.7 billion pounds by 2026/27.

The latest bout of political drama to grip Britain comes as the Bank of England also prepares to end its intervention in the gilt market.

($1 = 0.8869 pounds)

(Reuters)

British Home Secretary Braverman Wades in and Puts a Spanner in the UK-India Trade Deal

She is also against more Indian migrants and students, accusing them of overstaying their visas.

London: Cutting a somewhat insignificant looking figure on a late-night television show when Boris Johnson was about to resign as prime minister three months ago, Suella Braverman announced to a bemused television panel that she would stand in the contest to succeed him. She was the first candidate publicly to state her intentions, but neither Robert Peston, the ITV interviewer, nor subsequent media reports seemed to take the then little-known attorney general very seriously.

Born to Kenyan Indian and Mauritian parents who moved to Britain in the 1960s, Braverman has, however, proved to be ambitious, ruthlessly controversial and outspoken. That has led to her playing a seemingly leading role in slowing progress on the current India-UK free trade deal (FTA) negotiations by opposing the sort of economic migration that her parents enjoyed.

Though quickly eliminated from the leadership contest that eventually produced Liz Truss as a crisis-prone prime minister, Braverman strengthened her post-Brexit popularity within the anti-immigration and anti-woke right wing of the party during the campaign. That led to her being made home secretary, one of the four top posts in the cabinet, at the age of 42 – even though she lacked the experience of most predecessors.

Along with Priti Patel, who she followed as home secretary, Braverman is far to the right of other top politicians of South Asian descent, notably Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid.

Her stance horrifies many others from the subcontinent because she is denying would-be new immigrants the success that she is able to enjoy as a result of the opportunities given to her parents when they were economic migrants. She has said she is proud of what her parents achieved – her mother became an NHS nurse and local councillor in north London, and her father worked for a housing association.

Along with Patel, Braverman’s motives are widely thought to stem as much from political ambition as ideology. Both pander to the Conservative Party’s 80,000 largely right-wing members who elect the leader. They want to show they are “whiter than the whitest of Cheltenham colonels,” I was told, controversially but maybe aptly, by a friend of Indian origin.

Last week during the Conservative Party’s chaotic party conference, Braverman horrified government insiders by opposing more open immigration during a Spectator magazine interview for Indian students, key workers and others being included in the trade agreement that Truss and Narendra Modi had been aiming to sign by Diwali. That festival is celebrated at the end of next week and the target now has slipped to later in the year, unless some sort of interim deal is concocted.

Braverman also infuriated British universities with complaints about students’ extended families and said she wanted to drive down immigration, even though Truss’s economic growth needs immigrants to help fill over one million job vacancies.

Other cabinet ministers cashed in on the conference’s free-for-all and rebelled against Truss, who had been weakened a few days earlier by a disastrous mini-Budget and a financial crisis, but Braverman was perhaps the most disruptive. She has gone quiet publicly since then and last weekend joined a chorus of party leaders appealing for unity behind Truss.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng attend the annual Conservative Party conference, in Birmingham, Britain, October 2, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Hannah McKay

In The Spectator interview, she said she had “concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India” because she didn’t “think that’s what people voted for with Brexit”.

In the context of the trade agreement, she said there could be flexibility for students and entrepreneurs, though she had reservations. “Look at migration in this country – the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants. We even reached an agreement with the Indian government last year to encourage and facilitate better cooperation in this regard.”

The remark about India not abiding by the agreement to take back over-stayers is in line with Home Office grumbles over several years. It brought a predictable response from the Indian government that said it was committed to facilitating the returnees and awaited “demonstrable progress” from the UK.

Braverman talked about immigration in other interviews and has complained about the number of dependents who accompanies students – “family members who can piggyback onto their student visa.”

Lord Joe Johnson, who was universities minister in his elder brother Boris Johnson’s government, said her ideas on foreign students “bode ill for her period as Home Secretary if this is going to be her approach to, frankly, one of the most promising export industries that the UK has”. Without international students, the government could “kiss goodbye” to its ambition for Britain to become “a science superpower”.

The reverberations from the interview continued and led to a story in the UK’s Times newspaper on October 12 headlined “Indian trade deal in peril after Suella Braverman migrant comments”. This quoted anonymous sources from India saying the “relationship has taken a step back” while a British source alleged Indian officials were “apoplectic”.

In parallel, India’s Economic Times ran a headline that the deal was “stuck over access to skilled workers”. It said India had hardened its position demanding easier immigration into the UK amid the concerns raised by Braverman. A Delhi trade department spokesman was quoted saying India would not “sacrifice quality for speed”.

There are many other issues as yet unresolved in the trade negotiations where subjects range from access in India for Scottish whisky and British cars. A stumbling block is the UK wanting effective protection such as international arbitration for UK investments and freedom to store business data overseas, both of which India resists.

But apoplectic or not, relations between the countries seem as cordial as ever, at least at top levels.

India’s new high commissioner in London Vikram Doraiswami arrived three weeks ago and has been extremely active with a country-wide tour. Those he has met include King Charles, at a reception in Scotland, Liz Truss in a Downing Street reception, plus regional leaders and Keir Starmer, who heads the Labour Party.

Ultimately, the trade agreement prospects could rest on whether Truss has enough prime ministerial authority to overrule her home secretary in the interests of a deal that would be good for the British economy. Usually, a prime minister would be able to do that – but these are not usual times. Truss’s future is in doubt, and it might just be easier to let issues slide for now.

Braverman may however not have won the admirers and supporters she desires in the past week with her outbursts and could have even reduced her chances of stepping into No 10 Downing Street if Truss loses the job before the next general election in 2024.

John Elliott is a journalist.

As Forecast Lately, Liz Truss Beats Rishi Sunak To Be Britain’s PM – But Not by Huge Majority

The former chancellor was more specific in providing economic solutions but his privileged background and his weak political team were handicaps.

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.

Liz Truss Named as Britain’s Next Prime Minister

After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive leadership contest, Truss came out on top in a vote of Conservative Party members. She received 81,326 votes to Rishi Sunak’s 60,399.

London: Liz Truss was named as Britain’s next prime minister on Monday, winning a leadership race for the governing Conservative party at a time when the country faces a cost of living crisis, industrial unrest and a recession.

After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive leadership contest that saw the foreign minister face off against former finance minister Rishi Sunak, Truss came out on top in a vote of Conservative Party members, winning by 81,326 votes to 60,399.

“We need to show that we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy,” Truss said after the result was announced.

“I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply.”

The announcement triggers the start of a handover from Boris Johnson, who was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal saw support for his administration drain away.

He will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation. Truss will follow him and be asked to form a government by the monarch.

Long the front-runner in the race to replace Johnson, Truss will become the Conservatives’ fourth prime minister since a 2015 election. Over that period the country has been buffeted from crisis to crisis, and now faces what is forecast to be a long recession triggered by sky-rocketing inflation which hit 10.1% in July.

Foreign minister under Boris Johnson, Truss, 47, has promised to act quickly to tackle Britain’s cost of living crisis, saying that within a week she will come up with a plan to tackle rising energy bills and securing future fuel supplies.

Truss has signalled during her leadership campaign she would challenge convention by scrapping tax increases and cutting other levies in a move some economists say would fuel inflation.

That, plus a pledge to review the remit of the Bank of England while protecting its independence, has prompted some investors to dump the pound and government bonds.

Kwasi Kwarteng, widely tipped to be her finance minister, sought to calm markets on Monday, by saying in an article in the Financial Times newspaper that under Truss there would need to be “some fiscal loosening” but that her administration would act in “a fiscally responsible way”.

Truss faces a long, costly and difficult to-do list, which opposition lawmakers say is the result of 12 years of poor Conservative government. Several have called for an early election – something Truss has said she will not allow.

Veteran Conservative lawmaker David Davis described the challenges she would take on as prime minister as “probably the second most difficult brief of post-war prime ministers” after Conservative Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

“I actually don’t think any of the candidates, not one of them going through it, really knows quite how big this is going to be,” he said, adding that costs could run into tens of billions of pounds.

Truss has said she will appoint a strong cabinet, dispensing with what one source close to her called a “presidential-style” of governing, and she will have to work hard to win over some lawmakers in her party who had backed Sunak in the race.

The Institute for Government think-tank said Truss would have a weaker starting point than any of her predecessors, because she was not the most popular choice among her party’s lawmakers.

First, she will turn to the urgent issue of surging energy prices. Average annual household utility bills are set to jump by 80% in October to 3,549 pounds, before an expected rise to 6,000 pounds in 2023, decimating personal finances.

Britain has lagged other major European countries in its offer of support for consumer energy bills, which opposition lawmakers blame on a “zombie” government unable to act while the Conservatives ran their leadership contest.

In May, the government set out a 15 billion-pound support package to help households with energy bills as part of its 37 billion-pound cost-of-living support scheme.

Italy has budgeted over 52 billion euros ($51.75 billion) so far this year to help its people. In France, increases in electricity bills are capped at 4% and Germany said on Sunday it would spend at least 65 billion euros shielding consumers and businesses from rising inflation.