Liz Truss won the previous, UK Tory leadership race. Everyone may have remembered that – and more importantly, how she resigned. What might have been forgotten is that she won by a sizeable margin over Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor. Can Sunak though this time around win with the new odds that see him becoming Tory leader and hence UK PM. And odds that put Boris Johnson as second favorite and Penny Mordaunt a distant third.
However, given the fallout of Truss’s short-lived, 44-day and disastrous premiership, an important question needs to be asked. How can Sunak prevent such history repeating itself of coming second to a candidate of lower to even, “inferior” quality?
The first part of a thorough post-mortem of what went wrong in Sunak’s previous leadership campaign is, of course, to examine the profiles thoroughly of average conservative party members who voted by about 60 percent against him. One way to see it instead of looking at about 40 percent who favored him. A contest in which he widely predicted correctly that Truss’s economic policies were for the birds. But he still lost. Why?
In my estimation, it was because a sizeable number of voting party members were attracted to her anti-Treasury establishment attitudes and Margaret Thatcher “populist” look-alike style. But Liz Truss was no Margaret Thatcher and was not operating in the same financial and global times. Hence, it was clear that there have been too many Tory party members living in a 1980s-time capsule. Have enough waken up to understand that Sunak is the real economic deal in today’s world? Maybe, but that is not everything.
Indeed, many party members from little England so-to-speak that liked Brussels bashing and Brexit, combined with those older members nostalgia about the Thatcher days are still there in large numbers. If I understand correctly, the average Conservative Party member likely to vote in the leadership contest is in their mid-fifties with many significantly older. And let us put this politely, most are not exactly from minorities or fully sensitive to minority issues.
That does not mean the Conservative party has not much changed for the better on diversity. However, as unpleasant it is to say the Tory membership as it is presently constituted at the grassroots is not quite there overall. Meaning, that while electing a woman is clearly not a problem, even for some of the most ideologically crustaceous, electing a prime minister say of African or Indian origin is likely pathetically still a bridge too far for a significant margin of (older) Tories at the broad membership level. Sorry to let out the “secret” of the mad Tory elephant-or is that bull- in the china shop?
And populism is now so central to many Tory members’ vision that a candidate who is too rich looking of mega million (billions?) connected privilege and sounding and looking very smooth and worldly as Sunak may appear to certain populists, may provide an important obstacle to his campaign victory.
For me, ideally, I would probably like a son or daughter of a welder or other with a humble family background to be in the running. Or to have someone who was an orphan, like Michael Gove to be UK prime minister. Why? Given all the studies that indicate the oligarchs or top one percent are in too much control in the West, it can be argued as an offset, especially still in class dominated England, that a leader of relatively humble means might be more saleable. And more importantly more sensitive to the ever-broadening suffering electorate. This is especially so given the high energy bills and inflation that are crippling so many average voters.
However, given Truss’s abject failure to project competency and her predecessor’s moral shortcomings, here is what is important: First, the next prime minister is competent through and through and has a real proven track record at the very senior cabinet level of satisfactorily managing tough economic dossiers. Obviously, not being a serial liar and having reasonable trust from the populace is important. Sunak largely meets these requirements. And given Britain’s rather fragile fiscal and monetary position, having a person at the top of the power pyramid who has the confidence of financial markets is not a bad idea.
So, what is the conclusion? Rishi Sunak matches the job needs and description for this critical position of UK PM in these troubled times. None of his potential competitors come even close to meeting the pressing requirements of being morally trusted enough and/or with sound, well tested and competent economic leadership at senior levels.
The only main question remaining that is legitimate in the competency litmus test is did Sunak burn his bridges too much with the populist adherents to Boris Johnson and Liz Truss? And thus, it may be an indicator that he may not be collegial and unifying enough to work his caucus and cabinet?
Despite the challenges ahead, the Tories are lucky to have Sunak even to consider leading this “roughhouse of political carnivores”. But given my description of too many “anybody but Sunak” type Tory members, there remains sufficient doubt that he could win against Penny Mordaunt in a final saw-off. Mordaunt may not be sufficiently tested well enough economically but likely meets enough the minimum threshold for the populist and even the pro-Johnson wings. She also has a military reservist background, a positive during these geopolitical hard times. As well, she has a more unifying temperament and knowing the membership better. Finally, her candidacy is in sympatico with the strong, pro-female thrust in current politics as supported by much of main media.
So, at this moment, despite the odd makers disagreeing, Penny Mordaunt may very well become the next UK PM. However, I predict she would be mediocre as PM but better than Truss-how could she not be? As far as Boris Johnson is concerned, he would not have a chance as he has been too discredited previously over Partygate and well beyond. Therefore, it would be madness for him to return as PM.
Bottom line, the politically interested communities in Sunak’s candidacy need to mass mobilize and quickly. After all, the “ink will be dried” on Tory members’ ballots and a new UK PM decided in days. There is no reason to fully assume his victory is in the bag as the above underscores.
Peter Dash is an educator who has been widely published. He was a former Associate at Harvard, researching political participation and generational change.