Johnson waives candidacy, Sunak heads for British premiership

The denouement surrounding the leadership struggle for the Conservative Party is imminent. And the new party leader and prime minister will immediately have a double problem: he or she will have to lead country and party out of a crisis.

The deadline for candidates to replace resigned Prime Minister Liz Truss expires this Monday in the United Kingdom. It is likely that ex-minister Rishi Sunak will now become the new party leader and prime minister after Boris Johnson’s withdrawal on Sunday night. Sunak has been in the best position by far for days, he had the support of about 150 members of the House of Commons on Sunday evening.

The big question all weekend was whether ex-party leader Boris Johnson would also manage to arrange the necessary hundred statements of support. Members of the House of Commons eager to see him return as leader insisted he was determined to join. Until Johnson himself came out with a statement on Sunday evening: he was certainly “attracted” to the leadership and, according to his own words, also had the necessary 100 statements of support from lower house members, but he had “concluded that it just wouldn’t be the right thing to do.” to do”. Because, he declared, “you can’t govern effectively if you don’t have a united party in parliament.”

United, the Conservative Party was indeed anything but about Johnson and his eventual return. At the beginning of July, some sixty members of the House of Commons (ministers, secretaries of state and their support) left Johnson’s cabinet dissatisfied with his way of governing. But some of them suddenly supported Johnson again.

Stricter rules

The rules regarding the succession were considerably stricter this time than in July. The party committee that organizes the campaign has set the minimum number of statements of support from party members to stand a chance of 100; last time, candidates only needed 20 signatures. They do not want to give more attention than necessary to the great divisions within the party.

It really didn’t want to work. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are said to have tried to reach an agreement in London on Saturday. One prime minister, the other a high position in the cabinet, that kind of deal. But they couldn’t figure it out – the two were still head-to-head in July after Sunak was one of the first cabinet members to give up confidence in Johnson and resign. Johnson would also have asked party leader in the House of Commons and candidate Penny Mordaunt if she would give up her candidacy to rally behind him, but she refused. Mordaunt is officially still a candidate, but in much worse shape than Sunak, with an estimated less than thirty ‘Tories’ supporting her.

In recent days, one prominent Conservative after another has spoken out in favor of Sunak or Johnson, noting that Sunak was gaining more support. from the right flank then in the summer. Even David Frost, the hard-right Brexit negotiator who backed Liz Truss over the summer, now chooses Sunak. Also hardliner Kemi Badenoch, who participated in the previous round and came far, supports Sunak. Although she was “once a member of the Boris fan club”, as she in The Times writes, “We need Rishi’s discipline now.”

Also read: Indian Brits are proud that Rishi Sunak is prime minister

So it seems very likely that Rishi Sunak is the only one to have a hundred statements of support this Monday – then the United Kingdom will have a prime minister with an Indian background for the first time. Should Mordaunt still reach the threshold, the faction will determine their preferred candidate and then the approximately 175,000 party members may vote. Incidentally, the non-preferred candidate can also withdraw his or her candidacy, such as Andrea Leadsom in 2016 did to make way for Theresa May.

We need Rishi’s discipline now

Kemi Badenoch Right wing member Conservatives

Many Tories in the House of Commons feared such a vote among party members if Johnson would have participated, because Boris Johnson is better with ‘ordinary’ members than in parliament. He is nationally still the most popular Conservative Party politician.

Early Sunday morning, Johnson held another video call to persuade his colleagues to support his return. But the House of Commons saw a dangerous thundercloud over Johnson’s head: there is still running a parliamentary inquiry against him, over whether he misled the House of Commons about the drinks on Downing Street during the coronalockdowns. The Commission of Inquiry is said to have already collected a lot of harmful information. The risk of premature resignation because of those findings would be real and the Conservative Party couldn’t take anything like that anymore.

40 Billion Pound Hole

The new prime minister – most likely Sunak – will soon have to look after the interests of the United Kingdom and of his own party, with the two being quite contradictory at the moment. The party wants lower taxes, which the country cannot afford. Due to the turmoil in the financial markets in recent weeks and higher interest rates on loans, the government has a gap of 40 billion pounds (45.9 billion euros) to close in the budget over the next five years.

For both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, they should forget the promises of their previous reigns and the leadership struggle. Johnson promised lower taxes in his time as party leader, but that turned out to be not very serious; under him the tax burden actually increased.

Sunak is known for being more financially sound – he predicted the financial problems that Truss’ cabinet has caused. As finance minister, Sunak had foreseen an income tax cut in 2024, but that can no longer take place, according to current finance minister Jeremy Hunt. Hunt, flown in headlong by Truss a week and a half ago to regain the confidence of the financial markets, is likely to remain as minister.

At the same time as getting the public finances in order, the big challenge for the new leader is to unite the faction, after this short but fierce leadership struggle that has caused divisions. In any case, there is a recent example of what not to do once you’ve been proclaimed leader. After Truss took office in September, she made no effort to reconcile the different factions within the party.

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of October 24, 2022