UK TORY LEADERSHIP

UK TORY LEADER -SHIP

Words by Seb Andrew

After months of calls from the public, the press, and even members of his own party, Boris Johnson resigned. Well, sorta. Despite stepping down as Conservative Party leader, Boris remains as caretaker Prime Minister until his successor is chosen. This move has faced criticism, both from those who feel unease at the ability for a caretaker leader to implement policy changes, and those from his party who’d rather cut him loose and move on.

The resignation came after two days where cabinet ministers, some high-profile, resigned like rats leaping from a sinking ship. Despite successes in achieving a Brexit withdrawal and an enviable vaccine rollout, Johnson’s three-year premiership will be remembered as one wrapped up in the stench of incompetence and scandal. From a COVID strategy that was too rushed and stringent, to a plethora of scandals including undisclosed loans, breach of lockdown restrictions by staffers, and promotion of a MP embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations. The latter was ultimately the knife in Johnson’s premiership that triggered the mass resignations, but by this point it was already very near death.

It was ‘Partygate’ – the gathering of Conservative Party members and staffers while restrictions on gathering were in effect – that left him so vulnerable. Following reports in late 2021, the number of Conservative MPs calling for his resignation rose. The party experienced a drop in the polls from which it has still not recovered, and was thrashed in a series of local and by-elections. As he usually does when caught in a scandal or controversy, Boris offered a non-apology and believed he could charge through it like it was a rugby-playing ten-yearold. But Partygate would not let up and the damage caused left Boris ripe to be dumped. Were it not for the prolonged public anger and pressure to resign, he very well could have had his troops rally around him through the Chris Pincher controversy. For many who had wanted his exit, this was the step too far that finally allowed them to remove him.

Within days of Boris’s resignation, many of the rats having jumped the stinking sinking ship of the Conservative Party, saw the state it was in, and still decided to scurry back on and fight to take the helm. A field of eight candidates quickly narrowed down to two – former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Party leadership contests in the UK work a bit differently compared to Australia. Candidates who achieve 30 votes from their colleagues in the first round then enter a series of runoffs, in which the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. This continues until there are two candidates – in this case, Sunak and Truss. What follows is a nationwide campaign with debates (akin to a United States presidential primary) and a vote amongst Conservative Party members. About 0.3% of the British population, and a 0.3% who skew overwhelmingly white, male, upper-class and Brexit supporters, are about to pick the next prime minister.

To be blunt, Liz Truss will be the next Prime Minister. So far, Sunak is receiving lukewarm support from an electorate that blames him for bringing down Boris’ premiership (as Sunak’s resignation triggered the mass fleeing of ministers) and his refusal to cut personal or corporate taxes until inflation has been handled, which is estimated to be late 2023/early 2024. Fair enough – experts argue that corporate tax cuts don’t necessarily increase investment (someday, all that wealth will come trickling down… someday…) and personal tax cuts are a band-aid solution, but not very effective when, while yes some of the crunch is coming from wage stagnation, but a lot of the trouble is coming from supply issues. However, the Tory base doesn’t want logic and sensible economic management. They

want tax cuts, and Truss is more than happy to provide, pledging to scrap proposed corporate tax rises and tax revenue that funds ‘green projects’. Truss remains steadfastly committed to softening the crunch of inflationary pressures on household spending and fuel in the most complicated way possible, rather than, you know, GIVING people money to spend. ‘Tax cuts not handouts’ Truss insists. Experts project that Truss’s tax proposals could cost upwards of £30bn, so naturally the knife will be taken to the public sector. Truss has already promised to slash civil servants jobs and the amount of days they can take off – she did have to abandon a poorly received policy to slash pay for public sector workers in the north. This policy faced strong repudiation from northern Conservatives, and could have been Sunak’s big break, but opinion polls indicate little to no shift in his favour.

What about students? Sunak has vowed to cut university degrees that don’t boost a student’s ‘earning potential’ or lack a ‘social value’ – by now we should know this means… Arts and Humanities are getting the axe. Someone tell Sunak this isn’t the way to funnel students into desperately needed nursing jobs, or other essential work – it just hinders or deprives students of the freedom to explore their interests in an academic setting. Truss, meanwhile, has positioned herself as the ‘education prime minister’ and promised a radical shakeup of how university acceptance works – promising interviews with top universities for students who receive A*s (the British equivalent of an A+ grade). Currently, universities make offers based on predicted grades. Using actual, rather than predicted grades, would require an adjustment of the academic calendar, as universities would have to wait longer to make offers. This would mean either moving A- levels (British final exams) or the start of the university year.

While Sunak has at least attempted to moderate on tax and spending (by moderate, I mean resist the Tory urge to pile on corporate tax cuts like extra chips at a buffet) it’s been a race to the Right on issues of sexuality and gender. Truss’s record as Minister for Women and Equalities is appalling. She caved to TERF demand and refused to amend legislation to allow trans people to legally change their gender without a dysphoria diagnosis, oversaw an implementation of a half-assed conversion therapy ban that allowed conversion to continue on ‘consenting adults’ under the rationale of ‘freedom of speech’ and failed to protect trans people. Truss has throughout the campaign made remarks targeting the transgender community (particularly the Conservative bogeyman of genderaffirming surgery on minors, which is not practiced). With a resume far less ‘impressive’ than Truss, Sunak has been quick to flex his reactionary credentials. While promising to make Britain ‘the kindest, safest and most vibrant place in the world to be LGBT+’ he’s also promised war on ‘woke nonsense’, and like Truss has targeted Britain’s transgender community, taking stances against transgender women in women’s sport and bathroom use, and promising sexual education reform which some fear could see teaching of LGBTQ+ issues restricted. Such rhetoric is abhorrent, and from Sunak, pathetic, given it’s so obviously a desperate pivot to the right, but it’s comprehendable, given a majority of Conservative party members still oppose SAME-SEX MARRIAGE.

next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has been decided, by a homophobic, wealthy .3% of the population, and it seems all but guaranteed that it will be Truss. A woman so rabidly devoted to tax cuts that fly in the face of conventional economic wisdom, and the third female Prime Minister with an appalling record on targeting, and failing to protect women (because trans women are women!). Sunak, meanwhile, is a tale of tragedy, falling from high popularity, to disdain amongst the Tory base – blamed for his role in Boris’s downfall, and hated for putting what’s best for the country over what’s best for the base, throwing around reactionary buzzwords and targeting vulnerable Britons in a pathetic attempt to get support from his party’s homophobic members.

A sleazy, unpopular prime minister will be gone but the Conservatives’ problems will not end with the ascension of Truss. Commodity and fuel prices are expected to climb, and experts warn the British economy is racing towards recession. People feeling the crunch of recent inflationary pressures, and who have endured cuts to social benefits, health services, public sector pay, among others, are unlikely to warm up to the Cameron-May-Johnson-Truss government that’s been running the country since 2010 just because it has a new face. Replacing the leader might give the party a temporary honeymoon bump, but the public won’t be fooled into forgetting its legacy of brutal austerity and unseemly behaviour. SOURCES

https://www.theguardian.com/ politics/2015/oct/15/boris-johnsonknocks-over-10-year-old-boy-duringrugby-game-in-japan https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ukpolitics-62138041.amp

https://www.ft.com/content/4d9ed0eafd2c-4f84-a187-2dacabbd3943

https://thetab.com/uk/2022/08/08/ liz-truss-could-move-the-start-of-theuniversity-year-to-january-conservativeparty-leadership-contest-266827

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/01/10/ liz-truss-prime-minister-lgbt/ https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/07/29/ liz-truss-trans-tory-hustings/

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/07/22/ liz-truss-rishi-sunak-lgbtq-rights-toryleadership-candidates/