Imagine you are Rishi Sunak right now. Humour me and try, for a moment.
Your migration policy is failing.
So too is just about everything else your party is doing.
You face a torrid time on Monday at the Covid inquiry, which is going to show that you were utterly negligent on ‘Eat out to help out' and maybe 20,000 people died as a result.
And you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your party will be thrown out of office at the next election.
And then you face the one real worry he has about that election, which is that he might keep his seat and be forced to do another five year term in office when there might be so many better things for him to do in California.
Now imagine what, in that case, is his biggest priority at present. I would suggest that is how he might spend more time with his family's money.
So, what does he do? He engineers a showdown with his party. He refuses to make it a confidence issue so that his MPs can vote against him without fear of losing the whip, but in advance he makes it clear that this is a ‘back me, or I will walk' issue.
That is what the Rwanda issue is all about for Sunak. It is his chance to quit as PM, on what he will suggest to be principle, and then announce he will either also be quitting the House, or won't be standing again.
Sunak desperately wants to lose next week's vote on the Rwanda Bill. If he does not, he will want to lose the vote on the third reading, which may be more likely. Either way, he thinks he will then have created his own way out of the mess he alone has created.
Will it work? Who knows? Frightened Tory MPs might spite him and keep him in office, knowing they are doomed anyway.
That, though, is the last thing think Sunak wants. He knows it is game over for him and that the Tories need their fifth leader in five years. All he wants is to engineer the exit. And that's precisely why we have such an absurd Bill before parliament, but which is not absurd enough for his opponents, so that the party can split over it.
Whatever happens, Sunak wants out.
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I can picture Ruishi Sunak ending each day in Downing Street with a steaming mug of malted milk dreaming of a future, in sunny California……you might call it an Immigrants dream.
….. but the opportunity to make that “principled stand” was lost with the publication of the grubby Rwanda Bill. The “Principle” he should have stood on should have been respect for the Rule of Law. He might even have got some grudging respect on this blog.
But he is only playing for himself
Clive Parry
Any principled person would gave done that but we are talking about (a) a politician, (b) a Tory politician and (c) Rishi Sunak.
Using your route I cannot see how that would have led to the opportunity for him to throw the toys out of the pram/resign.
Eminently plausible Richard.
At the Covid Inquiry, Hancock was careful not to throw Johnson under the bus (perhaps in the hope Johnson would return the compliment). Johnson duly returned the compliment to Hancock. I thought everything was set up nicely, after Johnson for the Treasury and Sunak duly to fall.
All of this is becoming a dreadful indictment of the judgment of the Conservative Party members, and frankly, the Conservative electorate: Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak. Even allowing for human error; it is hard to find an excuse.
Will Sunak be the fall guy?
He is set up to do so; eloquently, the day before the Rwanda Bill Second Reading.
The critical point in all this was when Counsel yesterday made clear the discussions between Johnson and Sunak on developing and implementing the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ (‘…. the Virus’, as Vallance wittily put it in his diaries), had been conducted without the presence of the scientists; and Johnson claimed he did not realise that the Treasury-Sunak had devised the plan without recourse to the scientists.
That neatly primes the line of questioning of Sunak we may expect at the Inquiry on Monday; and the main news coverage that follows, leading up to the Second Reading.
Correct
I think Sunak is being framed by Johnsomn / Hancock
It is suggested Braverman would be in line to replace Sunak. I confess I have little interest in, and do not feel I am particularly well placed to judge such (often ephemeral) political issues; but such is the happenstance of the close, contingent conjunction that have brought together such improbable, current, opportunistic strands of politics (Covid Inquiry/Rwanda Bill).
Such is the nature of politics in uncertain times – which perhaps sets up the possibility of a hotherto seemingly improbable Johnson reprise, as more saleable in polite political circles (a reference Braverman herself used in her ‘Today’ exchange with Nick Robinson); than the roughhouse politics of Braverman herself, as a viable electoral commodity. Braverman? Rees-Mogg?!! I doubt it, short of the final, long overdue collapse of the Conservative Party. In the world of the madhouse, Johnson may look like sanity ….
Of course all of this merely speaks to the squalid Trumpian inflection that now permeates and taints British politics, but that is where we are; including, notably the Labour Party.
Can’t see how Johnson and Hancock can get together with any credibility.
I wonder why more hasn’t been made of this.
https://twitter.com/CovidJusticeUK/status/1732793853470511580
Johnson losing his rag under questioning by the lawyer for Covid Bereaved Families.
The tragedy for the country concerning Covid is that instead of pro-active people who build we’d got the equivalent of a demolition team in power.
The big message from Covid and even BREXIT – being thwarted even now by the continuity candidate Mr Starmer – is that continuous investment is the best way to run a country or any enterprise really.
We know that private investment – especially into public owned entities – is too often actually extractive rather than developmental.
Real long term investment commitment is what is needed from someone in this Godforsaken realm.
I always view his actions through the lens of his talking about them to his father-in-law at the dinner table when they next meet….
Indeed, a possible scenario.
That said: “Yes Prime Minister” is an addictive phrase and most of those to whom it has applied have had to be dragged kicking and screaming from No 10. Maybe Sunak, given his wealth is different.
Ultimately, the current situation is due to that most lethal combo a media which groomed/grooms a gullible and increasingly ignorant electorate (ref the FT article that I cited in a previous post).
Furthermore, PR will not be a cure for current ills – witness the events in the Netherlands and the rise of Wilders & his party (driven in no small part by developments outlined in the FT article).
New year election? maybe, but to be frank, I could not care less. What replaces the tories will be as bad, but just bad in a different way – the honeymoon period followed by authoritarianisim probably far worse than that imposed by the tories.
Mike Parr
Slightly off topic I know, but I want to challenge what you say about PR. A criticism of switching to this in the UK, has been that people say we would have had UKIP MPs elected. I have argued that not having any elected UKIP MPs was a bad thing. If they had been elected they would quickly have been shown to have feet of clay, and shown the door at the next election, as often seems to have happened when they have been elected to councils. Electoral injustice has been a grievance Farage and chums have been able to exploit. He has been far more influential out of Parliament than he would have been in it. (I blame the BBC).
I must admit though that the Dutch result has made me wonder if this was right. What do other people think?
I think you are right
And I still doubt Wilders will get power
I guess the core of my argument is: a media that is feral, and a trajectory for the populace (FT article) such that it can only assimilate knowledge in sound bites.
Bolt this on to corner shop economics (which means the financial ability of a government to deal with problems is synthetically constrained) and the outcome is Wilders & Co (Le Pen, AfD,…the list is growing) who are proto-fascists & deal in simplicisms.
PR is a fairer way to elect politicos, but only if the other elements (e.g. press) meet functional requirements in terms of democracy. Given current circumstances, PR gives a leg up to the proto-fascists. The UK is an exception (no PR) but this will not except it from current developments (lurch towards proto-fascism) & PR could accelerate this.
I hope I am very wrong.
I share your fears, as you know
Indeed. Give these people the microphone, give them the authority they crave and they bury themselves.
I appreciate that this thread is a bit off the topic of “Sunak, power, money and holidays” – but actually, in a roundabout way it is relevant. Sticking with – proto-fascisim and its causes, this is beyond pathetic:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/auditors-say-germany-should-stop-ineffective-spending-railway-and-building-efficiency
It relates directly to the comments by PSR on Deutsche Bahn being looted by Merkel & the synthetic constraints that the German government has imposed on Germany (remind me where Germany stands in world economic rankings?). The core assumption governing the ECB and its “intellectual superior/supervisor” – the Bundesbank – is that money and its supply is limited (the relationship – country/central bank – is no different to that of drug pusher/junkie, scarcity rules!). Politically, this has conseqences even as I write these words. The non-problem of “immigrants” has been weaponised by proto-fascists, because that is easy for many to understand. However, at heart, this is about people being worse off, in the Uk and many other countries. “Immigrants” is the symptom, poorer is the cause (coupled to degrading social services of all sorts – both in the Uk and in mainland Europe). This is why I am deeply pessimistic. I had a drink with senior Commission people earlier this week – without exception: get out – get away and build for survival.
Depressing
Sue Hawthorne
I think you are quite right: a couple of (or few) UKIP MPs would have been far less destructive than the Cameron assimilation of their ilk into the Conservative Party. And their Commons votes would almost certainly have been neutralised by Green MPs who would have been elected under a PR system.
UKIP would have had no significant influence: look at the influence of the SNP in Westminster, it’s negligible even with 43 MPs.
Mike
You asked!
My view is that over here in England, we see Wilders through the lens of FPTP. I don’t think that many over here realise that he has to work through a coalition system that can act as check on his policies. His ‘arrival’ is not what it seems.
I have to say that I only have to look at Wilders to know that I wouldn’t touch him with 10 foot barge pole. And his reaction to his ‘victory’ was just so about him rather than anything else.
On the subject of PR, a Dutch citizen one asked if I realised that such a system was able to let all sorts of nasties into political positions – racists, Nazis – the lot. I said it was better to keep your enemies close and where you can see them balanced with Gramsci’s observation that even our worst enemies have a kernel of truth in their argument.
I still charge politics with addressing Gramsci’s challenge which was a challenge to democracy itself that still needs to be met.
It is plausible. If he did the same as Johnson and said he will step down as soon as his successor is chosen that will last till after New Year – and he will have “Prime Minister 2022-24” on his CV, it wouldn’t be different from hanging on till an election in May or October.
Good point
As an abstract this issue, this, and just about everything else about them, is hilarious. Unfortunately they continue to poison minds, poison the very earth we stand on and poison the economy.
Five years for the next government is not going to be anywhere long enough to sort things out even if the will to do so existed.
Plausible.
Sunak’s body language, suggests that he knows he is beaten. Watch him at PM’s question time, not that he ever answers a question, but when Starmer speaks Sunak is often looking down and irritated that he should be accountable for anything.
I think it is about time that we had a rule that stopped a Government changing their leader in the way that Tories often do. The Tories were elected, albeit under FPTP, with Johnson as leader. When he became a liability they got rid, and a hundred thousand or so Tory members gave us Truss and her lunatic policies. When she became a liability they got rid of her and not trusting the membership, anointed Sunak after a sham leadership competition. The Tories are the stab in the back party as and they change leader and policies as and when it suits them.
I think that if a party wants to change leader mid parliament, then there should be a rule that a General Election needs to be held within three months of that new leader being elected. The point is, the public didn’t vote for Truss and her policies and no one voted for Sunak and Austerity 2. The only exception should be if a PM dies in office or cannot carry out their duties due to illness. I know the Tories will argue that we vote for a party and not a PM, but in reality it is the PM that dictates, or tries to, what the party policy going forward will be.
As for who would replace Sunak, I’d be amazed if the Tory MP’s would support Braverman, but of course, the membership would. They might consider that the most electable or save face candidate is wanabe Thatcherite Penny Mordaunt. Her whole career has been based on looking like Thatcher. A stalking horse to try and minimize the defeat to come.
Sunak has repeeatedly tried to claimn that his government is not the same as that of Johnson and Truss – and yet it has the same electoral mandate.
He makes your point for you.
It won’t really matter who is the Tory PM when the next Westminster election comes around: they’ve already drained the talent pool dry and there’s nobody with any gravitas left. Braverman has shown how devious, incompetent and irrational she is, likewise Schapps, Jenrick, Raab, Johnson (if resurrected), Rees-Mogg and on and on. Mordaunt certainly fancies her chances, but on a regular basis she is seen to lie to Parliament (viz her incessant generalisations about life and politics in Scotland, none of which stand up to scrutiny: she is a classic example of someone with strong views about everything and scant respect for facts), with the result that she’s as effective as Johnson was in tipping the political barometer towards independence. Only about 15% of our electorate will vote Tory and, with a recent poll showing 54% of Scots preferring independence to remaining in a UK in tailspin, it’s likely that most of any gains by Labour in the next GE will be at the expense of the Tories, rather than the SNP.
Today’s judgment by the Court of Session that the UK Gov’t has the right to overturn the law passed by the Scottish Parliament (N.B. not the Scottish Gov’t: it was a conscience vote on gender issues and was approved by MSPs of all parties by a clear majority) will enrage most Scots. Approval of the Holyrood Parliament sits comfortably at around 75% year on year and the overturning by Westminster of laws passed by our elected politicians will always be resented, especially when the UK Gov’t of the day has itself scant respect for the law.
It’s a matter of some irony that the current Tory Gov’t constantly cites Thatcher and her policies as its political ideals. It’s long past time that they should be reminded of her reputed statement that negotiations for Scottish Independence could be dependent on a majority of Scottish MPs in favour of independence being elected to Westminster. These may or may not be her actual words, but then the assertions ever since by the Tories that the oft-repeated statements by both Salmond and Sturgeon about the 2014 referendum being a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” were a binding condition of negotiation (when it was simply an off-the-cuff plea to get the voters out), are no more convincing to anyone who takes the trouble to investigate these matters. What becomes ever clearer is that it will be in everyone’s interests to find an equitable solution to this matter as conditions in the UK become increasingly fraught.
I know this is not quite the right place but I could not see an email address for you. Its from RT. Had you seen it?
UN raises alarm over UK child poverty
The organization ranked Britain 37th out of 39 nations in the OECD
@ Bill Kruse:
Richard’s email is given under ‘Read more about me’ (below his photo, top right of screen)
Apologies – my comment just made was for ‘Bill’, not Bill Kruse
What would Sunak do in California? Why would the techbros want him except as a curio? What, other than a bizarre novelty value, could he offer them?
I’ve been quite impressed by the words attributed to Barbara Woodward today:
“the UK continues to support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas terrorism as it seeks the return of over 100 hostages who are still held in Gaza but the UK is absolutely clear that Israel must be targeted and precise in achieving that goal.”
There is hope for the future. The people in the FCDO, civil servants basically, seem to know what His Majesty’s Government stands for on this.
I think this is a direct result of what has been going on in this country as far as law-breaking is concerned.
https://www.change.org/p/scottish-government-save-the-scottish-wildcat-by-protecting-clashindarroch-forest/u/32160282
A foreign-owned company building wind turbines feels it doesn’t need to wait for the law to say it’s okay. It has already started to uproot trees in the Cairngorms.
If Sunak and company were not allowed to ignore the law, other companies would not think it acceptable.
Fiona.
I have to disagree. Although the UK abstained, to most of the world it looks like backing the US and Israel. It will impact on our foreign policy with no up-side.
Targeting precisely depends on good intelligence in fast moving situations.They seemed to have flattened most of Gaza . Israeli intelligence failed to see the October attack coming. How much faith can we put in the intelligence?
The key principle here is the overwhelming priority to save life. Humanitarian aid has broken down. We face hundreds of preventable deaths in the next few days, and thousands in the next week or so. Other considerations are secondary.
The argument that doesn’t convince is that the IDF have to eliminate Hamas or Israel will face further attacks in the future. The savagery of their response will ensure many trying to exact revenge and even eliminate Israel to get a Palestinian state. It would be asking a lot of human nature to think otherwise.
The argument that continuing bombardment will free hostages is weak. The released hostages were released in a ceasefire.
The US has long spoken of a two-state solution but vetoed it in practice. They are now saying it is the only long term solution. The Likud party have no intention of allowing a Palestinian state,
The only way it will come about if the US marches them into it by not using the veto and restricting the supply of arms.
The US argues that in a ceasefire, Hamas will remain in control. It is a point though secondary to preserving civilian life. One wonders how much ‘control’ they have when people desperately need basics like food and water. They can’t provide it. An obvious solution would be for the UN to re-impose the mandate and send in peacekeepers who could arrest Hamas or, at least, prevent further rocket attacks. They would supervise the transition to an independent state. It needs some statesmanship.
See my tweet tonight
not on twitter , Richard
Can he engineer a snap election that he know he will lose along with many of his tormentors . That would seem fitting for his character and typical nasty party norms.
But if he went in as leader he might get five more years in the Commons. Why would he want that?
But if he calls it now, he will likely lose his seat as the voters in Richmond have become so disillusioned with him.
If Starmer loses his as well, that will make it very interesting, PR or not PR.
Jenw
Sunak’s seat is one of the safest Tory seats in the country, it would be pretty seismic if he lost it. I agree with Richard that he will not want to be leader of the opposition, not his style at all, but he is going to have to be crafty if he wants to go out on a high.
Starmer’s seat is pretty safe too.
Starmer’s seat may well be considered safe as traditionally it’s usually been Labour, but Starmer’s no socialist and therefore can lay no claim to it on that basis. Sunak’s this week been very publicly abandoning the rule of law in the pursuit of cheap political gains; not very Conservative of him, you might feel, and his local traditionally Conservative voters might well agree too and look elsewhere. I don’t think there are such things as safe seats these days.
Of course they will be safe if nobody bothers challenging them. In which case people can’t complain, can they?
https://ocisa.org.uk/the-plan-to-unseat-starmer/
https://politiking.co.uk/2023/11/19/rishi-sunak-election-defeat-risk/
Thank you, I had not seen either of these