British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday placed the fate of his embattled Conservative Party in the hands of a restless British public, who appear to want change after 14 years in Conservative government, and announced the Fourth of July A snap general election was called.
Mr Sunak’s surprise announcement, made from a rain-soaked podium outside 10 Downing Street, marked the end of six weeks of intense elections that will judge the party that has led Britain since the days of former president Barack Obama. It became the signal gun of war. But the Conservative Party has sacked four prime ministers in eight years amid the turmoil of Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and the cost of living crisis.
For the past 18 months, most opinion polls have shown the opposition Labor party leading by double digits, giving the Conservatives a sense of inevitability. Despite this, Mr Sunak said there had been enough good news in Britain in recent days, including signs of new economic growth and the lowest inflation rate in three years, for his party to cling to power. I am calculating that it may be possible.
“Now is the time for Britain to choose its future,” Sunak said, as the steady rain soaked his suit. “In this election we must choose who has that plan.”
Political analysts, opposition leaders and members of Mr Sunak’s own party agree that the electoral mountain he must climb is the Himalayas. Plagued by a recession, soaring prices, a disastrous foray into trickle-down tax cuts, and a spate of scandals and fraud, the Conservative Party has appeared exhausted and adrift in recent years, torn by bitter intraparty conflict and fatalistic about its future. Looked.
“The Conservative Party is facing a kind of extinction-level situation,” said Matthew Goodwin, a political science professor at the University of Kent who has advised Boris Johnson and other party leaders. “They are likely to suffer an even bigger defeat than the one against Tony Blair in 1997.”
Other political analysts are more cautious, with some pointing out that in 1992 Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative government overcame a large poll deficit to narrowly win and remain in power.
However, since the Conservative Party won a landslide victory in the 2019 general election on the slogan “Get Brexit Done”, it has attracted young people, traditional Tory supporters in the south and south-west of England, and particularly in the industrial Midlands. and working-class voters in the north of England, whose support in 2019 was key to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s landmark victory.
Many are disillusioned with Mr Johnson, who was forced to resign over scandals including a Downing Street party that breached coronavirus lockdown rules. And he is even more disillusioned with his successor, Liz Truss, who was ousted after just 44 days over a tax cut proposal that rocked financial markets, caused the pound to collapse and ruined the party’s reputation for economic competence. There is.
Mr Sunak, 44, has been quick to stabilize markets and run a more stable government than his predecessor, but he has never developed a convincing strategy to restore the country’s growth. critics point out. He also failed to fulfill two other promises. The aim was to reduce waiting times for Britain’s National Health Service and stop the flow of small boats carrying asylum seekers across the English Channel.
Many voters in what are known as “red wall” areas, after the colours of Labour’s campaign, seem ready to return to the party’s political roots. Under the uncharismatic but effective leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour has shaken off the shadow of its left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. A former government prosecutor, Starmer has methodically reformed the party, ousting Corbyn’s allies, eradicating the party’s legacy of anti-Semitism and moving its economic policy more centrist.
Under British law, Mr Sunak must call a general election by January 2025. Political analysts had expected Mr Sunak to wait until the autumn to give the economy more time to recover. But after Wednesday’s announcement that inflation had fallen to 2.3% a year, just above the Bank of England’s 2% target rate, he may have been betting that the economic news would be as good as it could be. . .
Sunak may also be calculating that the government could fly the first plane to Rwanda with asylum seekers next month. That would allow him to claim progress on another key priority: stemming the flow of small boats carrying asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Rwanda’s policy of deporting asylum seekers to the African country without first hearing their cases has been condemned by human rights campaigners, courts and opposition leaders. And it’s sparking a number of legal challenges. But Mr Sunak has put it at the center of the government’s agenda because of its popularity with the Conservative political base.
For Mr Sunak, the son of Indian parents who emigrated from British East Africa 60 years ago, the decision to go to voters sooner than expected is not entirely out of place. In July 2022, Mr Sunak split with Mr Johnson when he resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer, losing cabinet support and ultimately ousting Mr Johnson from power.
Mr Sunak then ran aggressively in the leadership race, losing to Ms Truss in a vote of around 170,000 party members, but after Ms Truss’ economic policies backfired and she was forced to resign, Mr Sunak re-emerged and won, this time in a contest open only to Conservative MPs.
Mr Sunak inherited a difficult set of problems: job losses, a sluggish economy and rising interest rates that trickled down to people in the form of rising mortgage rates. In Britain’s National Health Service, which has been battered by years of austerity, waiting times stretched into weeks and months.
Mr Sunak achieved some early successes, including an agreement with the European Union that largely ended the trade impasse over Northern Ireland. He exceeded his goal of halving inflation, which was 11.1% when he took office in October 2022. There are also signs that the economy is starting to improve.
The UK’s economic growth rate was 0.6% at the beginning of this year, emerging from a shallow recession in an unexpectedly strong manner. The International Monetary Fund has revised up its growth forecast for the country this year, praising the government and central bank’s actions.
But it may be a narrow window of good news. Inflation is expected to rise again in the second half of the year, and April’s reading was not as low as economists had expected. That has led investors to rethink how quickly the Bank of England will cut rates, all but ruling out a cut next month. Even hopes of a rate cut in August have receded.
At the same time, the scope for further tax cuts before the election worsened. Data released on Wednesday showed that public borrowing is increasing. And the IMF this week said the government opposes tax cuts, arguing that while Britain needs to stabilize its public debt, there is huge demand for increased public spending and investment to improve public services such as health care. warned.
Ultimately, analysts say it is these developments that will prompt Mr Sunak to decide to appeal to voters now, and that these issues will decide his and his party’s political fate.
“You can talk about party gates and trusses,” said Tim Bale, a political science professor at Queen Mary University of London, referring to Mr Johnson’s lockdown-breaking social gatherings. “But ultimately, the deciding factor in this election is anemic economic growth and a nation that is crumbling before our eyes.”
Eshe Nelson Contribution report.
