Is Britain ready for Rishi? Signs don’t say so as scales tip in Truss’ favour

Voting for the Conservative party leadership is finally over and by Monday evening the world will know if the United Kingdom has got its first Indian-origin prime minister or not.

After a gruelling six-week campaign of debates across the country Rishi Sunak, former Chancellor of the Exchequer is no closer to defeating his opponent Liz Truss, Defence Secretary, than he was at the beginning of the campaign. In fact, on the contrary, the gap between the two has grown larger with the chances for Truss becoming the next prime minister now standing at 95 per cent according to the betting odds, while Rishi, as everyone prefers to call him, has a measly 5 per cent chance of winning.

Conservatives call the shot

The battle began in mid-July when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to resign by a ministerial revolt after a string of scandals. It was Rishi who led the rebellion by being one of the first ministers to resign despite having been a Boris loyalist and 59 senior ministers and officials followed suit.

Also read: UK PM hopefuls Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak make final push amid soaring cost crisis

Over the next two weeks, the original 11 contenders were whittled down to two in a series of elections in which only Conservative Members of Parliament were allowed to vote. Ironically, Rishi emerged the winner in each round becoming the candidate with the highest number of MP votes, 137 as opposed to his closest rival, Truss’s 113. It was when the contest shifted to being decided by the around two lakh Conservative party members that Rishi’s stakes started falling.

The big question is can Rishi spring a surprise win, a bit like the Brexit referendum when pollsters had predicted a vote in favour of remaining in the European Union in 2016, but were proved wrong with the country voting to leave? Rishi’s camp thinks it can. With his ‘Ready for Rishi’ campaign slogan, the 42-year-old prime ministerial candidate has been around the country twice, attending over a dozen hustings, around a hundred election related events and talking to thousands of Tory members putting his agenda across.

Suave Sunak vs Thatcher-like Truss

With his Infosys heiress wife Akshata Murthy at his side along with their two daughters throughout the campaign, Rishi has put on a good show. In televised debates Rishi has come across as the better candidate – more knowledgeable and certainly less boring – so much so that an impromptu show of hands after the debates showed overwhelming support for Rishi. Whoever has heard him during the hustings has been persuaded by his erudition and argument; however, it is believed that more than two-thirds of Tory members cast their votes without even listening to Rishi.

The 47-year-old Truss, on the other hand, has pitched herself as another Margaret Thatcher and is seen by the Tory electorate as a continuation of the Boris regime. Truss has remained loyal to Boris and did not resign along with the other MPs. Many Conservative members are not happy with Boris being forced out of office and certainly blame Rishi for playing Judas, knifing his mentor in the back.

It is expected that a sizable chunk of the membership will abstain from voting this time because they are frustrated that Boris was removed from office in the first place. Boris is still seen by them as their best chance of winning the next general election due in 2024. Another poll has shown that the public thinks Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer would make a better prime minister than either Rishi or Truss, predicting a Conservative loss in case either of them lead the party in the next election.

Rishi’s supporters are sceptical about bookies’ odds and claim their candidate has every chance of winning. Rishi has been visiting some Tory associations where he has a broad base of support multiple times in the hope of ensuring that everyone votes. The lower the turnout the better the chances are for Rishi.

 Why race is a key determinant

The elephant in the room, of course, is race. While in today’s Britain of political correctness no one is openly talking about Rishi’s ethnicity or colour, it could be a factor for many of the voters. Though over the years, affluent British-Indians have ditched Labour, the party of immigrants, to vote for the Tories, not many have yet joined the Conservative party as fully paid up members and therefore do not have a vote in this election. Rishi obviously has the votes of the few Indian-origin members stitched up, but unfortunately in his campaign pictures it is only brown faces which are seen surrounding him.

Lord Rami Ranger, an Indian-origin businessman and a Conservative party donor, has said that Britain would be seen as racist if Rishi was to lose the leadership election considering he is by far the better candidate. However Rishi himself has defended his party arguing that race is just not a factor in the members’ decision. “I am sure, they are just figuring out who is the best person to be Prime Minister…Gender, ethnicity and everything else will have nothing to do with it,” claimed Rishi.

Rishi has worn his Hindu religion on his sleeve, taking oath as Member of Parliament by swearing on the Bhagavad Gita, visiting the Hare Krishna temple in Watford in north London on Janmashtami and lighting diyas on Diwali in front of No.11 Downing Street, the official home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Even then Rishi has also been anxious not to be taken for anything but British and has spoken again and again about his doctor father Yash and pharmacist mother Usha who taught him the Tory values of capitalism and hard work.

Also read: Rishi Sunak vs Liz Truss: Who’s more authentic, emotional and analytical?

Conservative members are predominantly white, middle-aged, affluent men, many of whom voted for Brexit because they wanted to reduce immigration and believed that it was time to take back control of their borders from foreigners. They certainly did not get rid of Europeans so that they could be ruled by a brown immigrant prime minister six years later.

The wait for the results is not too long now. They will be announced at 12.30pm (British Summer Time) on Monday by Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, and the new leader will meet the Queen on Tuesday and be invited to form the next government as prime minister.

(Sajeda Momin has held senior positions in Indian newspapers and now divides her time between Kolkata and London) 

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