'Disloyalty' to Boris may cost Rishi Sunak dear in British PM race

The race to replace British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has begun and though the finish line is still some way off, it is definite that Indian-origin Rishi Sunak will be one of the final two contenders. If the bookies are right, Sunak is the man to beat and even Tory MPs and some leadership rivals agree.

The former Chancellor of the Exchequer who quit Boris’s Cabinet and set off an avalanche of resignations that eventually forced Boris to call it a day was the first to announce that he would be running for prime minister. Within hours, Sunak had launched a three-minute campaign video on Twitter alongside a Ready4Rishi hashtag.

Also read: Boris Johnson quits, leaving Conservatives crippled and battered

The betting offices had him as a favourite to win among the 16 odd names that were doing the rounds for probable contenders to become the new leader of the Conservative Party. However, as the final day for nominations approached, Cabinet ministers and senior back benchers began dropping out. Indian-origin home minister Priti Patel, a staunch Boris loyalist, toyed with the idea of being a last minute entry and then never mounted the leadership challenge.

Javid out of race

The Pakistani-origin former health secretary, Sajid Javid, who resigned from the Cabinet minutes before Sunak and gave a devastating speech in Parliament as to why Boris should go, surprisingly pulled out of the race just moments before nominations closed. Javid, one of the most experienced Tory ministers and senior both in age and in the party to Sunak, was expected to give him a run for his money.

Eventually, only eight candidates made it to the ballot paper. Daily rounds of voting by MPs for the next few days will whittle down the numbers until just two candidates are left in the field. The final two will then go to the hustings when around two lakh Tory members will vote to choose their new party leader and in this case he or she will become the prime minister.

At the time of writing this article one round of voting by MPs had already taken place and two contenders – Jeremy Hunt and Nadim Zahawi – had crashed out of the race, failing to secure enough votes leaving six to continue into the second round. The real contest over the next week and before Parliament breaks for the summer recess on July 21, is the race to join Sunak in the final two.

Sunak’s key rivals

Sunak’s strongest rivals are Penny Mordaunt, international trade minister and Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary. In the first round of voting, Sunak was way ahead with 88 MPs voting for him, but Mordaunt came in at a decent second with 67 votes, doubling her earlier support base. Truss was a distant third with 50 votes.

Also read: Rishi Sunak wins first round of Conservative Party leadership vote

The main threat to Sunak is from the right-wing of the Conservative Party who consider him a “socialist chancellor” and have launched a campaign to “stop Rishi at any cost”. Those MPs still loyal to Boris consider Sunak’s resignation from the Cabinet a huge betrayal by the former Chancellor of the man who gave him such a big break even when Sunak was so young and inexperienced.

Sunak is only 42 years old. He joined politics as late as 2015 and had only held two ministerial positions before being catapulted to the Finance Ministry in February 2020. Boris loyalists have vowed not to support Sunak, and some like Jacob Rees-Mogg, minister for Brexit opportunities, have said that they would not join Sunak’s cabinet if he were to become the prime minister.

Sunak is running his campaign with the slogan “Let’s restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country”. Despite giving out doles during the COVID pandemic which made him a household name, Sunak is now insisting that he will follow Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing economic policies.

Humble beginnings

Even though he is the richest MP in Parliament today and appeared in the Times Rich List, thanks to his wife Akshata Murthy’s wealth, Sunak is touting his humble beginnings as an echo to Thatcher’s origins. Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, Thatcher was a grocer’s daughter who “lived above the shop”, while Sunak too is the son of a pharmacist mother and doctor father who worked hard to send him to an elite private school.

Mordaunt, Sunak’s closest rival, is going one step beyond the leadership race in her campaign and pitching herself as the best candidate to win the next general election for the Tories. “I am your best shot at winning that election. I am the candidate that Labour fear the most,” Mordaunt told Conservative MPs. Boris had continued in power in his last days arguing that he was the strongest candidate to take on the Opposition at the hustings and without him either a Labour or coalition government would be elected. Though the next general election is not due till 2024, there is every possibility that the new prime minister may call an early poll to establish his/her credibility with the public.

While Sunak is highly likely to win the MPs vote, he will come unstuck when the vote goes to the two lakh Tory members who are not happy with the ‘quasi-socialist’ policies brought in by Boris and Sunak over the last two years. Conservative Home website recently carried out a survey among Tory Party grassroots and found that among the members Mordaunt is far ahead of Sunak. Unfortunately for Sunak, Conservative Home surveys in the past correctly predicted that Boris would win in 2019 and that Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom would be the two finalists in the 2016 leadership contest.

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Even though Sunak may look as if he is all set to make history by becoming Britain’s first prime minister of colour and that too of Indian origin to boot, there are still many hurdles he has to jump before he crosses the finishing line.