ConservIng the conservative image in UK

This new leadership race is going to be a lot shorter than the last. Officials have set a week’s target to complete it
Image used for representational purpose only. (Express Illustrations | Soumyadip Sinha)
Image used for representational purpose only. (Express Illustrations | Soumyadip Sinha)

There's a running joke on British social media at the moment. Someone posts a picture of a baby and says something along the lines of "This is my son. He's only four months old, and he's already seen two monarchs, two Prime Ministers and four Chancellors of the Exchequer". The problem is, it's not funny anymore.

It's difficult to summarise the British political landscape since July in just a few paragraphs, but I'll give it my best shot. After months of growing opposition in both the country and his party, Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister but vowed to stay on until a successor was chosen. This kicked off a lengthy process to find a new leader of the Conservative Party – several MPs were nominated, but this was whittled down to just two in a series of votes within the parliamentary party. Rishi Sunak (the preferred choice amongst MPs) and Liz Truss were the remaining candidates. The final choice was down to all Conservative Party members, and they disagreed with their elected MPs.

Rishi Sunak had rooted his campaign in a conservative (in the literal sense) approach, declaring that there would have to be some difficult economic choices ahead in the face of the war in Ukraine, increases in energy costs and rising inflation. Truss was Conservative in the political sense, declaring that the way forward was for tax cuts in the hope of increasing growth and boosting the economy. She told the party members exactly what they wanted to hear, and they made her party leader and Prime Minister by a convincing margin.

Once in power, she had to deliver on this promise. Her new Finance Minister – Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng – set out a 'mini budget' in which the details of her plan were announced. The result was devastating. The markets went into turmoil, the British Pound dropped to its lowest level against the US Dollar in decades, and The Bank of England raised interest rates to calm already rising inflation – increasing mortgage payments for thousands of Brits.

This was not what you would call a glowing start for a new leader. Opinion polls predicted the opposition Labour party were miles ahead – even suggesting the Conservatives would face a near wipeout if there were to be an election soon.

I'll just let that sink in for a moment. One of the most established political movements of the United Kingdom – the party of Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher - could face being in third place in a General Election.

Kwasi Kwarteng's resignation followed soon after. Downing Street had already seen one short-term Chancellor - Nadhim Zahawi - during the summer, now Kwarteng had the second shortest tenure in history. (If you're interested, the only person to serve a shorter term was Iain MacLeod, who died of a heart attack just a month after being appointed in 1970).

Kwarteng was replaced by the experienced Conservative Minister Jeremy Hunt. Hunt set about reversing most of the disastrous 'mini budget', but the damage had been done. U-turns never look good in politics, and confidence in the Truss government was still hard to find. The criticism from within her party grew until it was made clear that she had to go. She announced her resignation on Thursday and is now expected to be the shortest-serving PM in British history, with less than two months in the job.

While the details of this are all very interesting, for those living in the United Kingdom, it's created a state of instability unseen in living memory. People in the street hardly know who their government is, let alone what they stand for or what the future holds. While everything hangs in the balance, businesses are unsure where (or even whether) to invest, and that hesitation impacts everyone, from CEOs to workers.

One thing is certain; this new leadership race will be a lot shorter than the last. Officials have set a week's target to complete the process, and MPs need nominations from at least 100 of their colleagues to be in the running. Given that they currently have 357 MPs, there can't be more than three contenders.

The list of those contenders has been evolving rapidly. We don't know for definite where the nominations have fallen, but it appears that Rishi Sunak has comfortably cleared the threshold of a hundred. Penny Mordaunt (who came in third place last time) has also declared her intention to run for leadership but is believed to be far short of the required level of support.

And that leaves Boris Johnson. He may have resigned as Prime Minister, but he still sits as an MP and has claimed to have a large number of nominations to try to return as leader. Despite his claims, the leading news outlets in the UK put the number of MPs publicly supporting him in the 50s. We may never know precisely how many colleagues backed him as he made a last-minute withdrawal the night before the deadline, saying it was not the right time. It now looks almost certain that Rishi Sunak could be the only candidate remaining on Monday afternoon, meaning he will get the keys to 10 Downing Street if nobody else manages to get the backing of 100 MPs to make it a contest.

This shows more than anything the scale of the division we are experiencing in British politics. The division between the wishes of party members and their MPs, but also in amongst the MPs themselves.

It's hard to write anything on British politics without mentioning Brexit – Britain's highly controversial departure from the European Union. It would be wrong to attribute every event of the last few years to Brexit, but it's undoubtedly played a big part. The decision to leave wasn't debated on usual party lines – both the governing Conservatives and the opposition Labour party had sizable groups of people who were pro and anti-Brexit – and so it stoked an era of politicians routinely fighting battles within their party. Labour has battled through a period of conflict between their far-left former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the more centre-left members. The Conservatives have struggled with numerous internal divides too, and the hardest part of the new leader's job will be to try to heal them. Given the scale of the other problems facing the country, that's no insignificant task.

(Tweets@ThatDavidHarper)

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