His landslide victory among the Conservative Party deputies promises a recovery of political stability
Rishi Sunak will be the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after the withdrawal of his rival, Penny Mordaunt, one minute before the deadline for one hundred Conservative Party deputies to sign their support for the candidates. King Carlos III will ask this Tuesday for the first time a political leader to try to form the Government. The election suggests a horizon of greater stability.
Sunak’s victory reflects the urgency felt by the parliamentary group to quickly close a period of relative government chaos, from the overthrow of Boris Johnson to the instant collapse of the government of his successor, Liz Truss. The financial crisis aggravated by the latter’s failed mini-budget has fostered sobriety in the political environment.
Throughout the morning of this Monday, supporters of Penny Mordaunt affirmed that the candidate already had 90 supports and that she would exceed the necessary threshold to enter the second phase. They also insisted on her willingness to force the election of the party’s members between the two candidates who had exceeded one hundred signatures. Mordaunt is popular with the militancy.
At the same time, his campaign collaborators publicly recommended that he abandon his ambition and try to reach an agreement with Sunak. As a ‘Brexiter’ activist, she hoped for support from the European Research Group (ERG) faction, but members of the Eurosceptic MPs’ association could not agree on a candidate.
Sunak is, at 42, the youngest British head of government in modern times, the first non-white to follow the teachings of Hinduism. Perhaps he was also the first abstainer. He is one of the wealthiest Members of Parliament and his wife, Akshata Murthy, is a businesswoman and investor, the daughter of an Indian billionaire. He has often been portrayed as spreadsheet-obsessed and enthusiastic about video games and Star Wars.
Members of the ERG, who played a key role in bringing down former Prime Minister Theresa May, warned the two candidates that they must keep their promises in the summer campaign that they would be blunt in negotiating with the European Commission on the Protocol which regulates freight traffic between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Decisions
This Friday is the deadline for the London Government to call regional elections, due to the Democratic Unionist Party’s boycott of the Belfast Assembly while the Protocol remains in force. In Truss’s brief time there was a cooling of tensions between London and Brussels. Sunak is likely to keep the bill, which allows for the unilateral repeal of parts of the Johnson-negotiated Brexit deal, alive.
The new prime minister will have to make decisions that will justify protests in the seats of a parliamentary group, which is often described as ungovernable. But the priority is economic. He will have to decide whether to stick with a budget presentation at the end of this month, agreed to by Truss and current Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, or give himself more time.
The announcement of Johnson’s withdrawal from the campaign to be leader prompted the stock markets to improve the parity of the pound and lower the interest on government bonds, which are still higher than before Truss’s appearance. One reason for the negative response from capital markets was their mistrust of the management of public finances by a government that wanted to borrow more to undo Sunak-engineered tax increases.
The appointment of a Cabinet that includes the currents and personalities of the party is his imminent task and it is not easy. In a message to the 1922 Committee, which organized the election, the winner stated that the party is united on ‘Brexit’, because it is already a fact. His economic ideas are of classical liberalism, but he showed pragmatism with the enormous public spending to alleviate the effects of the pandemic. His tax hike caused dissent and the events of recent days have vindicated him.
He has promised to maintain the government’s firm support for Ukraine, but not to increase defense spending to 3% of GDP, as Truss promised and Minister Ben Wallace demanded. He has already met with Hunt to analyze the financial situation of the Treasury and the budget lines, which according to the minister require “difficult decisions.” It is an indication of increased taxes and reduced spending.
He has two years to show that the UK has turned the tide by navigating a “deep economic crisis”, as he put it in a brief public statement. He stressed that his main objective is to unite the country. The guarantee that he offers is that of a politician whom his collaborators in the Ministry of Economy describe as extremely industrious.
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