Rishi Sunak has landed his dream job, but politically has a mountain to climb

Rishi Sunak had lit lamps outside No. 11 Downing Street on Diwali in 2020 when he lived there as Chancellor of the Exchequer and had announced that it was the “proudest moment of his life”. Two years later on the same day, Rishi, as he prefers to be called, has been given a Diwali gift beyond his dreams. He has been anointed leader of the Conservative Party and therefore becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, which he said was the “greatest privilege of my life”.

Rishi will be asked by King Charles III to form a government on Tuesday morning, when he will become Britain’s first prime minister of Indian-origin, of Asian descent and person of colour, at the tender age of 42, making him the country’s youngest prime minister in over 200 years.

Truss’ loss was Rishi’s win

Ironically, just seven weeks ago, Rishi had lost the contest for the same post to his rival Liz Truss after a grueling two month campaign and was destined for a future in the political wilderness. However within 45 days Truss was forced to resign after her government imploded thanks to a disastrous mini-budget and fiscal policy that tanked the share markets and the Pound Sterling. Truss was forced to make one U-turn after another and lost control of both her government and the Conservative Members of Parliament.

Having had a long, bitter and divisive leadership contest in the summer, the Conservative Party could not afford another one so soon, hence the 1922 Committee – the group of Tory backbench MPs who are responsible for holding leadership elections – increased the threshold of nominations for candidates to 100 MPs to hasten the election process.

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In the three days that followed Truss’ resignation last week, Rishi soon became the favourite of Tory MPs and managed the 100 endorsements needed for his name to be on the ballot very quickly. Penny Mordant, Leader of the House of Commons, who had come third in the last leadership contest officially announced her candidature and looked set to become Rishi’s only rival.

However, on Saturday morning former Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to rush back to the UK from his holiday in the Dominican Republic and throw his hat in the ring for the job that he had been forced to step down from just three months earlier. By this time around 50 MPs had publicly backed Johnson for the leadership and he was expecting to get another 50 quickly.

On Saturday night Johnson called Rishi, the man he held responsible for his downfall and against whom he had run an “Anyone but Rishi” campaign in the summer contest, for a face to face meeting. According to The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the 60 minutes the friends-turned-foes spent together, Johnson offered Rishi a joint ticket with him returning to 10 Downing Street and Rishi to No. 11 as his Chancellor. Rishi rejected the deal and refused to stand aside. Johnson then offered Mordant a plum job in his Cabinet if she withdrew and let him take on Rishi alone. She too refused.

Rishi sweeps Johnson’s votes

What had started as a three horse race soon became a walkover for Rishi with Johnson withdrawing from the contest on Sunday evening realizing that the majority of the MPs were not in favour of his returning to the corridors of power at this juncture.

The Mordant camp was hopeful that she would hoover up the MPs supporting Johnson and she could make the magic number of 100 endorsements needed for an election. Mordant was confident that like last time, the one lakh sixty thousand grassroots members of the Conservative party would not vote for Rishi but vote for her instead as they had done for Truss.

However, on Monday morning, it was Rishi who was sweeping up the Johnson supporters and by midday he already had the support of more than half of the 357 Conservative MPs. As the 2pm deadline approached, the Mordant camp claimed it had the support of 90 MPs, but more and more MPs urged her to withdraw from the race and prevent an election that would simply erode the Tory party’s credibility even further. Mordant held out till within a few minutes of the 2pm deadline and realising she couldn’t make the 100 endorsements withdrew, thereby making Rishi the only candidate for the leadership.

Path ahead full of thorns

While Rishi has got his dream job it is not going to be easy to hold on to it and he has to hit the ground running. As the next prime minister, Rishi needs to restore confidence in the British economy. He more or less admitted this in his first brief address to the nation after his win when he said “there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge”.

He has to get the economy back on track and help people with the cost of living crisis. The country is facing the worst inflation in 40 years, stagnation of the economy, the pound has fallen by fifth of its value and years of austerity under a Tory government has caused the worst drop in living standard in 200 years.

The National Health Service (NHS), which has been the pride of modern Britain is broken and its social care system has been run into the ground. Britons are facing the harshest winter in living memory with energy bills soaring through the roof. Many at the bottom of the economic ladder are having to choose between putting food on the table or heating their homes.

Politically Rishi has a mountain to climb. He has inherited a fractured party which has lost its credibility with the public and he acknowledged this in his victory speech saying “we now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together”. Rishi needs to assemble a government, taking all sides of the party into the fold. If he forms a government of only his friends and starts behaving like Truss’ team then he may be out almost as quickly too.

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Having got the support of the majority of the Parliamentary party, Rishi should at least have the winter to work without any rebellion from within the party. Currently the Labour Party has a lead of more than 30 points over the Conservatives and if the country was to hold a general election tomorrow as the Opposition parties are demanding, the Tories would be wiped out. MPs realize that this is their last chance of staying in power and another round of leadership chaos will lead to even the public demanding a general election.

The only Tory who Rishi needs to be wary of at the moment is Johnson, but after the latest failed attempt to get his old job back, Johnson is likely to keep quiet for a while. Johnson is facing a Privileges Committee enquiry on whether he lied to Parliament, and if manages to clear his name in the enquiry, then that is when Rishi will have to worry. Till then Rishi needs to prove to his party and the country that he has what it takes to be prime minister.