Rishi Sunak, the self-declared underdog, did not become the U.K.’s first ethnic minority Prime Minister. Mr. Sunak was never expected to win, though he put up a spirited fight against Liz Truss in the “Darwinian system” (former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s description of the leadership contest) that produces leaders of the Conservative Party. Mr. Sunak arguably had the backing of economists and his parliamentary colleagues (though, notably, not his former cabinet colleagues) as the U.K. heads towards cascading crises of the economy, health and services. He was the technocrat, pitted against a maverick who had declared a war against economic orthodoxy. He was the safer, if gloomier, pair of hands. And it was expected that he would lose. His defeat raises a question: Did Mr. Sunak’s ethnicity have anything to do with his failure? The answer to that question is ‘it’s complicated’.
The ethnicity question
The first thing to note is that though the Tory leadership contest was modelled on a presidential system, the new Prime Minister was chosen by a small minority of the electorate — well under 0.5% of all eligible voters, as only members of the Conservative Party can vote for their new leader. Over 99% of the electorate had no say in the person declared Prime Minister on September 5. So, this vote is not in any way representative of the wider U.K. public. It is also known that paid-up members of the Conservative Party tend to be older, white males, based in the affluent south-east, and strongly in favour of Brexit and controlling immigration. These are the people who chose Ms. Truss over Mr. Sunak, whereas, at the penultimate stage of the contest, involving parliamentary members of the Conservative Party with constituencies across the country, Mr. Sunak collected 137 votes compared to Ms. Truss’ 113.
Second, throughout the campaign, no overt mention was made of Mr. Sunak’s race or religion. Indeed, it was a complete non-issue that a practising Hindu was seeking the highest office in the land where the Queen is the head of the Anglican Church and the Church sends 26 Bishops to the House of Lords. This is to Britain’s credit, as is the fact that of the eight original competitors for the job, four were not ethnically white.
Immigration stand
Here is where the good news ends, for this was a campaign that veered to the right on culture wars and immigration. Mr. Sunak, a grandson of immigrants, played to right-wing concerns when he repeatedly raised the spectre of uncontrolled immigration. He doubled down on his support for the Johnson government’s policy, under Home Secretary Priti Patel, to deport to Rwanda those deemed illegal immigrants, even if they are seeking asylum. Ms. Patel’s policy is currently facing legal challenges, amid claims that the Home Office and other government departments were aware of serious concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record, which the U.K. has officially criticised in the past.
Both candidates vied with each other to sound tougher on immigration. In addition to his endorsement of the Rwanda policy, Mr. Sunak proposed introducing a cap on the number of refugees while also narrowing the means by which asylum may be sought; spoke of housing migrants on disused cruise ships, which might have fallen foul of British and international laws on arbitrary detention; and promised to increase the power of the state to detain and monitor those deemed illegal immigrants. He also promised to double deportations of foreign criminals.
Ms. Truss promised to extend the Rwanda policy to other countries; not be bound by the European Convention on Human Rights; increase border staffing; and, most controversially, potentially force back small boats making the dangerous Channel crossing, which would entail a very real risk of loss of life.
Part of the problem
A two-month campaign is a long time in politics, especially in an internecine war. The candidates, in order to distinguish themselves, had to criticise each other and present themselves as a fresh start. The flaw in this strategy was that they were part of the problem they criticised. If the economy is in trouble, the National Health Service is in crisis and there are large-scale strikes, it is because of the policies their government has put in place, while they were part of it. So, the candidates chose straw men to shoot down instead. Immigration was of course one — red meat to the Tory faithful. But there were other dependable straw men: Mr. Sunak attacked “left-wing agitators” for “taking a bulldozer” to British history and culture, and “woke nonsense” that does not allow him to use words like “man”, “woman” or “mother”. In the past, Ms. Truss attacked “pink bus feminism” and “fashionable” stances on gender and race. During the campaign, she criticised a “woke civil service culture”, even issuing a press release promising to protect Jews from “creeping anti-Semitism and wokeism”.
At one level, this is baffling. But the problem with such right-wing assertions on a campaign trail is that they have a long half-life: with each utterance these sentiments become more normalised and the counter moves further to the right. This leads to two observations about political life in the U.K. today.
One, as the Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010, has cycled through three Prime Ministers, it has chosen someone further to the right with each successive leadership election. A mirror response in the Labour Party saw the Opposition move further to the left, something that the current Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, is trying to reverse. The centre ground, however, remains a wasteland. There is more polarisation in politics now than there was during the last changing of Prime Minister, and it will be interesting to see how the Conservatives will campaign during the next general election.
The second observation is that there is now a marked democratic deficit in the U.K. as a result of the free-for-all in this leadership campaign. The whole country was in suspended animation for seven weeks while the Conservatives chose their new leader — had the government fallen, a general election would have had to be called within 25 days. In order to win, the candidates had to promise to protect the interests of a minuscule minority, which, at a time of economic crisis, means that several people in low- and middle-income groups are left staring at a financial abyss because the candidate who won does not believe in handouts and will cut taxes for higher earners instead. This could be a long and cold winter.
Priyanjali Malik is an author and commentator based in the U.K.
