Sunak, a turn for the better in Britain

Rishi Sunak has taken over as Prime Minister of Britain at a time when the country is economically in dire straits and politically uncertain and unstable. He has assumed office in unusual circumstances and would be an improbable Prime Minister in most other times. Liz Truss, his predecessor, who had beaten him in leadership stakes weeks ago, quit after 44 calamitous days, and Sunak became the natural choice, though unconventionally. He won a quickly held party leadership contest without a ballot, as he was the only MP to gather the 100 nominations needed to qualify for the race. He is set to form the government as the third Prime Minister of the country in four months. He is the Conservative Party’s fifth leader since the Brexit referendum of 2016, and the country’s youngest Prime Minister in over two centuries. He is the first non-white, Asian and Hindu to be Britain’s Prime Minister.

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Sunak has serious challenges waiting for him. He has to put back in place an economy that is reeling under the impact of Covid, the Russia-Ukraine war, a worldwide inflationary trend and, most recently, Liz Truss’ mini-budget. Inflation needs to be reversed and the recessionary trend checked. High energy and borrowing costs have hurt national and family finances. The National Health Service (NHS) has to be made functional. The economic and financial problems did not start recently and can be traced to Brexit and before. There was no government that handled them well in the past few years, and the Liz Truss experiment in untimely Thatcherism only aggravated them. Sunak has the reputation of a finance person with his professional background and record as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had warned against the Truss package of tax cuts. But it is going to be a long haul before the economy is straightened. He has not got much time for that. Elections are due in January 2025, and the Tories will not go for another leadership change before that. But the Labour Party has called for early elections, especially because Sunak has not come to power through popular vote.

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Sunak’s elevation to the highest political perch in Britain may be an indication of the maturing of its democracy. He is a British citizen born and brought up in the UK but has other identities which would have disqualified him for his position. It is also remarkable that he is the leader of the Conservative Party, which is not the preferred party of non-white voters. It may be a sign of more accommodating social attitudes in the country and is welcome when politics and society are shrinking and turning ever more intolerant in most other countries, including India.