By Ren Takahashi
The United Kingdom is all set to go to polls on July 4 as the Tories, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, seek to defend their 14 years long regime, over 4 general elections, that has witnessed 5 Prime Ministers
On 22 May 2024, a drenched Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, addressing media, outside 10 Downing Street,
called for general elections of July 4. Sunak’s decision came as a surprise, as Labour continues to dominate
the Tories, and an Autumn polls were largely anticipated. Parliament will now be suspended on Friday,
before it is formally shut down on Thursday next week ahead of an official five-week election campaign.
October or November had previously been thought more likely for an election date. But the rumours started
swirling from early on Wednesday morning, after confirmation that annual inflation had fallen to its lowest
rate in almost three years. The government foreseeing no positive economic news before autumn, decided to
go ahead with the first July polls since 1945.
The Prime Minister referred to the inflation figures as he announced the election date in Downing Street, in a
sign he hopes to frame his campaign around a narrative of economic recovery after a period of rising living
costs.
Rishi Sunak, who is the UK’s first Prime Minister of Asian-heritage (Indian), is challenged by Keir Starmer,
the current Leader of Opposition in the Parliament and former Chief Prosecutor of the UK. The UK is
divided into 650 constituencies, with parties putting up candidates who will win their seat and become a
member of parliament (MP) by a simple majority of voters. There is no proportional representation in
general elections. This tends to be good news for the main parties – the Conservatives and Labour – and
terrible for smaller parties, which can win a lot of votes across many constituencies but not enough to win
many seats outright.
Sunak, who became Prime Minister in October 2022, is facing a wave of anti-incumbency after 14 years in
power of his Conservative (Tory) Party. Over 14 years, the Conservatives have had 5 Prime Ministers, 3 of
which held office in the last 5 years. While his opponent Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has been out of office
for 14 years – Gordon Brown was the last labour Prime Minister. In 2019, when Boris Johnson decided to call
snap election to exhibit the national mood towards ‘Brexit’ – Britain’s leaving of the EU – the Labour Party,
led by Jeremy Corbyn, a leftist leader, who described himself as a ‘socialist’, was crushed. The Labour lost 60
seats, down to 202 under Corbyn, who had overseen the Party’s defeat in the 2017 snap elections as well.
Johnson’s wins was proclaimed by political commentators as ‘staggering’ and that there was no prospect for
Labour to contest power in the next decade. Five years later, Keir Starmer, who took leadership of the Labour
Party from Corby in 2020, and today presents it as a “changed labour”, is trouncing the Tories by 20 points in
polls. Just like any politics, British politics too is capacious for surprises. It remains to be seen wether this
election, which is the first July election since 1945 for Britain, is going to be a surprise or not.
While Sunak faces the burnt of the Tory’s 14 years in power, which saw a record three referendums (Voting
System 2011, Scottish Independence 2014, and Brexit 2016) under now foreign secretary and then Prime
Minister, David Cameron, followed by the Premiership of Theresa May, whose government was the first to
be found in contempt of the Parliament in a vote, a first in national history. Leading to the leadership of Boris
Johnson, who became Prime Minister in 2019, secured Brexit, and had to resign in 2022 due to the partygate
scandal, where the Prime Minister allegedly had a party during the Covid crisis. Johnson’s successor Liz
Truss was Prime Minister for the shortest duration in British history – a mere 45 days. In 45 days, Truss
stirred up a havoc in the country and her party with the insidious mini-budget, her approval ratings
bottoming at a meagre 9%. Thereafter, Rishi Sunak assumed office as Britain’s Prime Minister on 25 October
2022.
When Sunak took on the baton from Truss in 2022, Britain was grim and despondent. The Prime Minister
immediately set out to tackle widespread issues of the economy, immigration, and the UK’s international
relations in wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The Tories under Sunak, presented a plan to a
nation that was simply jaded of their party’s governance over 12 years. The Prime Minister set out his
government’s five priorities – 1) Halving Inflation 2) Growing the Economy 3) Reducing Debt 4) Cutting
NHS Waiting List and 5) Stopping Small Boats – in an attempt to ameliorate public frustration by moderating
Britain’s most excruciating challenges. How the Prime Minister and his government fared on these 5
priorities is indubitably an imperative factor for determining the conservative party’s chances in the
forthcoming elections.
Inflation: Inflation was at 10.7% in the three-month period between October and December 2022, Sunak took
office in October, so the aim was to reduce inflation to 5.3% or lower in the last three months of 2023. The
Consumer Price Index or the CPI, which tracks the price of a typical basket of goods, for the last three
months of 2023 was 4.2%, comfortably below half the rate it was the year before – so the government has met
this pledge. However, it is noteworthy, that economists have been sceptical of the government’s promise
towards inflation. Paul Johnson, Director of the IFS, an influential think tank, reported to the BBC – “The job
of cutting inflation is for the Bank of England not the government. So it was always inappropriate for the
government to have a target/pledge to halve inflation. It was an opportunistic pledge given the fact that
Bank was, in January, forecasting that inflation would easily halve.” Moreover, The Office for National
Statistics (ONS) points this morning to lower energy costs as the biggest factor pulling inflation down – a
global, not a domestic factor. While Suank’s pledge was met with global tailwinds, his government did its
part for mitigating inflation by being disciplined in spending, resisting calls for restless borrowing, and
helping people back into work to address the high number of job vacancies. The Prime Minister did deliver
on his first priority.
Growing the Economy: In 2023, the UK went into recession as its economy shrank by 0.3% in the last three
months of the year. Overall, the economy grew by 0.1 in 2023. In contrast, the US economy grew by 3.2%, the
French by 0.8%, the Japanese by 1.92% and the German economy shrunk by 0.2%. On 28 March 2024, Jeremy
Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was asked if the government had failed in its pledge to create growth. He
said that the promise had been to halve inflation but that the prime minister: “then said we would grow the
economy. I don’t think any of us were expecting the economy to actually grow last year.” The pledge to grow
the economy was made more difficult by the government’s promise to halve inflation. The Bank of England
put up interest rates 14 times to stop prices rising so quickly. Hence, the Prime Minister oversaw a lingering
economy that to be realistic, did not do worse than anticipated.
Reducing Debt: On 7 November 2023, the Prime Minister made a social media post mentioning the debt of
the nation to be falling. To his ignominy, the Chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, Robert Chote, in
response to a letter by Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokeswoman mentioned that the latest debt figures to be
at 97.8% of GDP, marginally higher to the figures of January. “The average person in the street would
probably not have interpreted the prime minister’s claims in the way that his office explained them to us and
would likely have assumed that he was claiming that debt was already falling or that the government’s
policy decisions had lowered it at the fiscal events – neither of which is the case. This has clearly been a
source of confusion and may have undermined trust in the government’s use of statistics and quantitative
analysis in this area.” – wrote the Chairman of the UK Statistics Authority. The current figures for UK general
government gross debt was £2,654.3 billion at the end of Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2023, equivalent to 100.0%
of gross domestic product (GDP). The government has not only failed here but also been rebuked for its false
claims.
Cutting NHS Waiting List: The National Health Service (NHS) waiting list, which is applicable only to
England, as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland operate their own health systems, has been a long
standing conundrum. Since the pandemic, the NHS has been a wreck, with some even calling the system
“broken”. And its not just the general capacity of the hospital and the waiting for treatment that are the
issue. In December 2022, the average wait time for an ambulance to attend a “category 2” condition – like a
stroke or heart attack – exceeded 90 minutes. Ambulance staff and nurses have staged a series of strikes over
pay and working conditions. There has long been an implicit contract between British people and the state:
Pay taxes and National Insurance contributions in return for a health service that is free at the point of use.
But, with the tax burden on track to reach its highest sustained level since the NHS was founded, Britons are
paying more and more for a service they increasingly cannot access as quickly as they need. Underfunding is
widely regarded as the focal point of the NHS crisis; Neville, a consultant at a hospital, told CNN – “When
the Labour government came in in 1997, they injected considerably more money into the NHS. It enabled us
to appoint an adequate number of staff and get on top of our waiting lists”. The issue of the waiting list is the
record time people have to wait before securing treatment. In many instances overwhelmed hospitals have
led to patients receiving treatment in corridors as well. Staff shortages further exacerbated the capacity of the
system. Sunak’s government has allotted pound 14.1 billion for health and social care over the next two
years. The government has set various targets to ease the NHS by March 2025. However, due to change in
measurement standards of NHS waiting time in January 2024, it is strenuous to calculate the current status of
the system. Therefore, whatever the case might be, the Prime Minister’s target to cut NHS waiting list cannot
be considered to be delivered upon.
Stopping small boats: do not mistaken the last priority of the Prime Minister to be any less of a controversial
issue or without constant tub-thumping, both inside and outside the Parliament. Prime Minister Sunak has
long advocated a need for a “deterrent” to discourage illegal immigration to the United Kingdom through
small boats via the English Channel. The deterrent that Sunak has proffered as a lasting solution to the crisis
is the much contended ‘Rwanda Deal’. The plan presented by Sunak detains immigrants, who got to the UK
illegally, and deports them to a safe third country, in this case – Rwanda. The conservative government
struck a deal with government of Rwanda to facilitate the process. And collaboratively have established
compounds to house the deported individuals. Hope hostel, one of the first such facility built in Rwanda,
has 50 bedrooms which are cleaned daily. The hostel is built in one of the most affluent regions of the
country. “We have pool tables, a sports center, computer rooms. And there is Wi-Fi everywhere.”, Ismael
Bakina, the manger of the hostel said. Maintenance of the site has been covered with British funds for years,
through a €433 million ($462.7 million) agreement signed by the two countries in 2022, part of which has
already been transferred by the U.K. After deportation, the migrants and refugees enter the Rwandan
asylum system, making them eligible to live and work in Rwanda. If they prefer to leave the country, they
are also free to do so. Amidst surging illegal migration, which witnessed more than 120,000 people illicitly
crossing the English Channel, the U.K. Supreme Court deemed Sunak’s Rwanda plan as unlawful. Following
the Supreme Court’s judgment, the conservative government was surrounded by Labour on its failure to
tackle illegal migration, which jeopardises the U.K.’s internal security. The Supreme Court judgement was an
obvious setback for Sunak’s government, however, the government has confirmed to execute a revised
Rwanda plan. The first flights under the plan will take off in July. Labour, which has long argued that the
Prime Minister’s Rwanda plan is doomed to fail, has further stated that the first flights under the scheme
taking off in July, which is after the election, already illustrates the government’s convolution towards its
own intentions. In a recent visit to Austria, Sunak was successful in eliciting the confidence of Austrian
Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, for his Rwanda plan. The British Prime Minister has further claimed that over
20 European Union countries are assessing the viabilities of the plan. Another adjunct issue with the Tory’s
Rwanda Plan is the opposition of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in response, Sunak has
explicitly affirmed that he won’t “let a foreign court undermine the internal security of the U.K.” If the Tories
are voted to power then the U.K. will pull out of the ECHR due to the issue. Keir Starmer has alleged that
withdrawal from International institutions for the government’s egomaniacal and bedevilled plan. Starmer
asserts that Sunak’s ill-conceived plan on such a vital issue pushes the U.K. to be a “pariah state”. Assessing
real figures, an ambivalent discernment largely emerges on the government’s addressing of the issue. In the
whole of 2023, 29,437 people were detected crossing the English Channel, according to the Home Office,
which is down more than a third from the previous year. So far in 2024, 6,265 people have been detected,
which is up a quarter from the same period last year. It is for the British voters to determine if they have
confidence on Sunak’s Rwanda deal or Labour’s gang-bashing plan, which is devoid of a real agenda.
A comprehensive assessment leads us to the conclusion that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s performance has
been moderately bosting. It is crucial to underscore that Sunak is the face of what is largely public
disgruntlement against 14 years of the tories. Moreover, in what is Britain’s most agonising cost-of-living
crisis, the knowledge of the Prime Minister’s “personal financial convenience” or the affluence of his family,
produces him as greatly unhooked to the distresses of average British family. His rival, Keir Starmer, has left
no stone unturned to establish the personal contrast with the Prime Minister. Starmer, whose mother was a
nurse in the NHS, which is now “broken”, and whose father was a toolmaker – has time and again reiterated
his origins in a working class family. “We had to cut the telephone lines to save money”, Starmer shared a
memory of his youth, while speaking at a labour event in Sussex. The former Chief Prosecutor has rehearsed
similar lines throughout his campaigning trail. “I understand what it is like to work all life and not yet have
the dignity of procuring basic amenities”, Starmer says, he further lashes out at the Prime Minister, “While
the country was going through an economic downturn, Rishi Sunak was making money by betting against
the UK”, referring to Sunak’s career in finance prior to joining politics.
While Starmer attempts to strike a cord with the voters on the Prime Minister’s indifference to their
everyday issues; Sunak has anchored his campaign to accentuate labour’s lack of plans to address the
problems of the British people. “He is going to raise your taxes by 2000 pounds, they have no plan, if you
think labour will win then – start saving”, the Prime Minister declared in his first debate with Starmer.
Sunak’s track-record towards his five priorities might not be outright marvellous, but it does seem to be
working, and that is the Conservative anthem in this election – “Our plan is working”. A mix of the Tory
plan’s working and Starmer’s labour destitute of a plan – is the crux of Sunak’s campaign. On their part, Keir
Starmer’s “changed labour” has outlined its 6 priorities – 1) Deliver economic stability 2) Cut NHS waiting
times 3) Launch a new border security command 4) Set up great British energy 5) Crackdown on antisocial
behaviour 6) Recruit 6500 new teachers. The Labour has further promised five fully funded national
missions to quell the omnipresent resentment of the British people, these five missions are – 1) Get Britain
Building Again 2) Switch on Great British Energy 3) Get the NHS back on its feet 4) Take Back our Streets 5)
Break Down Barriers to Opportunities.
Further elaboration on Labour’s plan to ground these initiatives can be found at: https://labour.org.uk/
missions/
In the recently concluded Starmer vs Sunak debate, the Prime Minister edged over his counterpart: 51% to
49%. Every major poll clearly indicates a labour victory in the forthcoming elections. Political commentators
deem Keir Starmer not a “remarkable” leader, yet apt enough to leverage the spewing anti-incumbency
against the Tories to bring his changed Labour to power after 14 years. The conservatives do seem to shy
from delving into their leadership records and instead focus their campaign to highlight the disaster of
Corbyn’s labour and Starmer’s probable inclination towards it. In conclusion, be it Sunak or Starmer,
scepticism runs high amongst the British people on either ‘s ability to unravel the myriad issues that torment
ordinary citizens.