Monday 24 October 2022

The Tories after Sunak's Coronation

It was a hard fought election, except it wasn't. With Boris Johnson realising the game was up before it started, Rishi Sunak finds himself appointed our new Prime Minister. And I, for one, am glad. This is because Penny Mordaunt is an unknown quantity as far as the public are concerned, but has always stood out as a relatively charismatic, competent, and normal figure - a rarity among the Tories, and the sort of politician a repeat of the Ruth Davidson strategy would benefit. Danger averted.

Unfortunately for Sunak, his first public appearance as Prime Minister "elect" was as wooden as anything Liz Truss attempted. But does this really matter? From the standpoint of the ruling class, there are three things that do. That Sunak will have a becalming influence on the markets, which appears to have been the case. The second is a programme that will make everyone but the British bourgeoisie pay for the crisis Truss's idiotic budget touched off. And third, he has to unite the party. In his closed speech to the 1922 Committee, he said the Tories were facing an existential crisis (yes) and needed a government that brings on the Tories' warring factions. A move that already shows a better handle on political realities than his predecessor. And, according to those present, there was a real desire for unity. Maybe there was for those who were there, but what about the dozens of Tory MPs who were not?

As discussed many times in recent weeks, managing the Tory party was never going to be easy for whoever came next. Johnson would have produced an absolute meltdown as the briefcases took their briefcases away. Mordaunt might have put noses out of joint because she did not command a majority among the parliamentary party, while Sunak lies between the two. Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman positioned themselves for jobs with declarations of support for him, suggesting both prefer ministerial office to impotent backbench posturing. But while reaching out to some on the right and including them in the cabinet is smart politics, there are others who won't be reconciled. There are the die-hards like Nadine Dorries, who (rightly) observes that Sunak lacks a popular mandate of any kind. While her relationship to Johnson seems anything but healthy, she is channelling an energy welling up from thousands of members who, not unreasonably, aren't taking kindly to an imposition of the candidate they comprehensively rejected. Indeed, the warning from the Bow Group that tens of thousands will leave the party is credible. How much this feeds through into the wider parliamentary party to cause Sunak trouble remains to be seen, but you can be sure it won't be long before Andrew Bridgen calls on him to step down.

A bigger problem is with Sunak's programme. We don't know how much of Jeremy Hunt's mini-budget he plans on sticking with, but given his desire to calm the money markets' animal spirits it's unlikely there will be many (if any) changes before this Friday. If there are, the policy direction will be regressive as per past behaviour. The failure of Johnson's levelling up wheeze was largely because Sunak was uninterested in using the state to drive regional economic development. It was Sunak - the wealthiest MP sitting in the Commons - who pushed for clawing back £20/week from Universal Credit recipients. Sunak oversaw the increase in National Insurance and had to be forced into offering a energy price relief. If anything characterises Sunak's politics, it's a determination to reverse politics to the time before Covid and Corbynism and get people into the habit of not expecting anything from the state. He wants to close the popular political imagination and scrub out the hopes and the memory that government can do things, like abolish homelessness, and provide a better welfare settlement - if it was minded to.

Sunak's mutterings about "economic choices" suggests another round of cuts are at hand, but this is where he could hit the buffers. The acquisition of former Labour seats in 2019 has made a layer of new Tory MPs either sympathetic to impoverished constituents, or to the consequences of neglecting them. Those in and around the so-called Northern Research Group will not be favourably disposed to more cutting, while the ERG/Johnson hold outs might find common cause around defending "levelling up". Sunak could avoid implementing another round of cuts if he chose. No one is forcing him to give billions of state cash to energy generation and supply, but there is an Overton window to be slammed shut and the politics to be managed. If this week shows this is his primary concern, it won't be long before the 1922 Committee's call for unity is ripped apart by the gnashing of teeth and chaos descends once more.

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4 comments:

Blissex said...

So, as expected, it was stitch-up for Sunak, a huge defeat for democracy.

A very Conservative coup. Note that in the similar case for May after Cameron's disappearance May was appointed as *potentially* a compromise candidate: a "Remainer" who was prepared to carry out "Leave", a neoliberal thatcherite who also had some one-nation positions while being a tory on social values. Sunak is clearly the frontman of one faction only.

«And third, he has to unite the party. [...] and needed a government that brings on the Tories' warring factions»

That was also Starmer's inauguration speech, and then he was not as "foolish" as Corbyn, we'll see if Sunak will be.
The war between kipper thatcherites (the "bastards") and neoliberal thatcherites has been going on for decades, has destroyed several Conservative PMs, and it reflects a fundamental split between Conservative interest groups. I doubt that someone who was rejected by MPs and members in the previous leadership contest can placate the kipper thatcherites.

«Sunak lacks a popular mandate of any kind»

I guess that Attle did not have “a popular mandate of any kind”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Labour_Party_leadership_election
The second contest took place on 3 December:
Name Votes %
Clement Attlee 88 64.7
Herbert Morrison 48 35.3


From 1940 to 1945 he held high office without having received a popular mandate either, as part of national coalition. Different times, but someone would say that the UK is at war as a co-belligerant with the Russian Federation, and it need a safer neoliberal pair of hand, be that Sunak or Starmer... :-)

Andrew Curry said...

Attlee didn’t serve as leader without winning an election. And although my recollection of the result of the 1945 general election is a little hazy, I seem to remember that he did get enough of a mandate on a clear manifesto to justify the Labour Party programme. Apart from the various factional difficulties that Phil describes about Sunak has the twin problems of not having an electoral mandate and being likely to impose policies that weren’t in the 2019 manifesto. My judgment is that you can get by on the first (historically other Prime Ministers have done so) nut not both.

Blissex said...

«Attlee didn’t serve as leader without winning an election.»

With 88 votes against 48, a huge majority too! :-)

Sunak has 3 roles: MP, where he was popularly elected, leader of the Conservatives, where he was elected according to party rules, just like Attlee was, and as PM, where he has to have the confidence of Parliament (of King and House, representing the Commons), and he has it.

Those are the rules in this system, and it is curious that delegitimising some holder of office because their appointment was done according to the rules is a common sport since Corbyn and Trump, both of them (barely) outside the "guardrails" that enforce a "centrist democracy".

As to the equally laughable "not in the manifesto" policies about Truss, since 2019 there has been COVID, supply-shock inflation, and the UK government (and opposition) have started a war against Russia, never mind that usually manifestos are mere declarations of intent (anybody remembers Tony Blair promising PR in the 1997 manifesto?).

Those on the "left" who join reflexively "two minutes of hate" campaigns by one thatcherite faction against another thatcherite faction seem very happy that the tactics have been and will be used against the "left" too, only much more extreme ("beers at work meetings" vs. "liquidation of the kulaks" and "expensive wallpaper" vs. "genocidal antisemitism").

The right can have no principles and be based entirely on the furtherance of the interests of incumbents (nowadays a large minority against the many), but the left must be based on some principles to counter that.

Blissex said...

On the "legitimacy" issue here is "The Guardian" at its typical:

«So another unelected Tory prime minister seeks to stop the rot. Rishi Sunak was chosen by just a few dozen people out of 47 million voters. [...] No one voted him in.»

Except for the confidence of Parliament. I guess "The Guardian" is pushing the notion that Parliament is an illegitimate representative of the will of the UK people. That may be so, and a french-style presidential system with the direct election of the top executive might be preferable, but that kind of argument can also end in dangerous ways.

The other interesting point is that the internal Conservative election was stitched-up (while formally respecting the rules the party gave itself) transparently because of the threat of an entry of Boris Johnson in the contest, which means that the "blob" were afraid he might win or place very well.

Now that the "sensible pair of hands" is in, I wonder whether the majority of the neoliberal press will continue with their current campaign, or it will happen as after the campaign for the elimination of Corbyn, that suddenly New Labour smelled so fresh :-).

My worry is that the "Cameron version 2" stich-up will end up having the same problem he had, a resurgence of something like UKIP, especially if this happens:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/07/lord-michael-heseltine-boris-goes-brexit-goes/
“If Boris goes, Brexit goes, says Lord Heseltine
Tory grandee says Prime Minister’s departure likely to lead to shake-up in relations with EU”

Note: I cannot forgive the delusional fools who believed that "2nd referendum" was anything more than an anti-Corbyn tactic, and thus largely made sure that we lost any chance of a soft "Norway" style exit he had reluctantly endorsed as 2nd best to membership.