UK: The chaotic past is catching up with Prime Minister Sunak

The return of short-term Prime Minister Liz Truss to the public has thrown her successor Rishi Sunak into trouble. The cracks in his Conservative Party are becoming more and more apparent, and the prime minister’s workload is mounting.

Truss is already the second ex-head of government to drive the internal power struggle – Boris Johnson has been involved again for weeks. Large donations and trips abroad to Kyiv and Washington give the impression that Johnson is aiming for a managerial position again. Or even his old post at Downing Street.

Truss, who, like Johnson, is an internal opponent of Sunak, is now making sure that there is no peace in the Conservative Party. She showed up demonstratively with old allies in Westminster. As a reminder: Truss failed after less than 50 days in office because, although she was serving a conservative dogma with her low-tax policy, she shocked the financial markets with her purely debt-financed project. Sunak stepped in to sweep up the shards. It succeeded, albeit at the cost of raising taxes – a red rag for many Tories.

This is where Truss puts the ax on. In a long article for the conservative newspaper “Sunday Telegraph” and in an interview with the TV channel of the conservative magazine “Spectator” she made it clear that she still believes her policies are the right ones. The fact that she has become the prime minister with the shortest term in office is largely due to others – “a very powerful economic establishment and a lack of political support”. By insisting she was right after all, she was suggesting that Sunak’s dovish, confidence-building fiscal policy was wrong, the BBC commented.

“Liz was crazy, but she was right”

The consequences of Truss’ fiasco are still being felt. Homeowners, for example, will have to pay higher mortgage interest rates for years to come because the banks had increased the rates enormously as part of “Trussonomics”. But that doesn’t bother some Tories, so entrenched is the ideology of strict tax cuts.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay, for example, was receptive to Truss’s focus on growth at any cost. The 47-year-old was never given a fair chance to implement her ideas, Barclay said. The BBC quoted a former cabinet member as saying that Truss did not see the government as conservative but as social democratic. That’s a harsh swear word for the Tories. A government official told the broadcaster: “Liz was crazy, but she was right. Rishi is wrong, but he is competent.”

Conservatives have their backs against the wall

To make matters worse for Sunak, he is only prime minister because Truss failed so miserably and the party put him in office without an election as a quick fix. When he competed against the then Secretary of State for Johnson’s successor in the summer, the 42-year-old lost. In any case, it is an exciting constellation that has resulted from the many changes in Downing Street in recent years. For the first time in history there are seven living ex-Prime Ministers: in addition to Truss and Johnson, his predecessor Theresa May, as well as David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major.

While the latter are sometimes more or less clear about the current situation, three former heads of government, May, Johnson and Truss, are still sitting in parliament as so-called backbenchers – and are literally breathing down Sunak’s neck. May was critical, especially during Johnson’s scandal-ridden period, but recently stayed on course. But the other two make no secret of the fact that they still have political plans. “The ghosts of the messy Conservative past are never far away,” commented the BBC.

The conservatives already have their backs against the wall. The government is just as unable to get a grip on the strikes that have been raging on the railways, in the health service and other sectors as it is on the increasing number of illegal entries. All polls are currently predicting a resounding defeat in the parliamentary elections planned for 2024. Even if Truss insists that she does not want to become prime minister again: her statements and the long shadow of Johnson, in whom many at the base in particular still see the most promising conservative election campaigner, are unlikely to improve the situation. The distraction is already huge.