For the first time in a long time, this week there have been no TV crews broadcasting from College Green outside Westminster, the location traditionally used for political broadcasts. With Rishi Sunak now installed as Prime Minister, it very much feels as though the country has let out a sigh of relief.
It has been open season between the different caucuses within the Conservative Party this year as discipline within the party totally broke down. The Boris administration may have been marred by scandals but it was only when his fellow Conservative MPs turned against him did Boris fall. Labour didn’t bring Boris down; Boris’ enemies in the media didn’t bring him down; it was when the volume of ministerial resignations meant that there was no longer a functioning Government that Boris had no choice but to resign.
Over the summer, Libertarian Liz Truss with the support of Team Boris jostled with Rishi Sunak for the party leadership. Truss may have won the leadership contest by throwing red meat to Conservative Party members, but unrest in the parliamentary party continued. The Parliamentary Party did not choose Truss and was never loyal to her; she only enjoyed the support of 115 Conservative MPs at the final ballot during the leadership contest. With the support of less than a third of the party, as soon as things turned for the worse following the disastrous fiscal statement on the 23rd of September, her Conservative Party colleagues turned and chipped away at her authority until she had no choice but to resign.
The unprecedented nature of the ill-discipline among Conservative MPs this year has been striking to witness. It almost felt as though at this moment in the electoral cycle, approximately halfway through the current parliament, the Tories thought they were far enough out from the next election to have the luxury of rebellion; an opportunity to exercise their machiavellian tendencies one last time before the long slog to the next election. I will admit that as a politico I am likely viewing the ill-discipline romantically and that actually Conservative MPs moved to oust Boris and Truss out of simple necessity - the Conservatives have a track record of doing whatever it takes to win after all.
With the calm that has followed Sunak’s coronation, in the markets, the media, and the Tory backbenchers, politics feels more settled than it has done for a long time. With Sunak, a competent and serious politician, has come catharsis. The Conservatives are back to being the party of fiscal prudence. A poll from Redfield and Wilton this week, on who British voters think would be the better Prime Minister, gives Sunak a 4 point lead over Keir Starmer: 41% to 37%. The Tories may still have a mountain to climb - Sunak is clearly more popular than his party - but they have stepped back from oblivion.
Many commentators this week have said that reinstating Suella Braverman as Home Secretary was Rishi’s first mistake as Prime Minister. The argument goes that reinstating someone who was sacked for sending sensitive material from her personal mobile (and accidently Cc’ing in the wrong recipient I might add, which was how it was found out) is inconsistent with Rishi’s pledge to govern with integrity and accountability. Ethically, reinstating Braverman is hard to defend, but from a raw politics point of view it is canny. Labour and left-wing commentators this week have been decrying her appointment whilst at the same time putting a spotlight on someone who has a hardline stance when it comes to immigration and the arrival of small boats across the English Channel.
Attacking Braverman for using language like ‘invasion’ and for blocking hotel stays for asylum seekers is something of an own goal for Labour for it suggests for all the Conservative infighting that has taken place this year, the Conservative 'right' is still very much a part of Rishi’s government. It was telling at Prime Minister’s Questions on the 2nd of November 2022 that Sunak defended Braverman, stating that she is ‘getting on with the job: cracking down on crime and defending the UK’s borders, something which the party opposite (Labour) has no interest in supporting’.
This will go down well with those who voted Conservative in 2019, the very coalition of voters which the Conservatives have to try and hold. A snap YouGov poll on the 1st of November 2022 asked whether Braverman’s use of the word ‘invasion’ was appropriate: 76% of Conservatives said it was, compared to just 16% of Labour voters. Leaning into cultural concerns will not win the Conservatives any new voters, and may not be pretty at times, but it may enable the Conservatives to harbour their 2019 coalition of voters which is their only chance of holding onto power in 2024.
Using Braverman as a foil to lean into cultural issues, whilst Sunak leads the party as a compassionate conservative, may be a shrewd approach. There will come a point, though, where the Tories will have to back up the rhetoric. After all, the Rwanda Scheme hasn't worked whilst being hugely expensive, and the small boats keep coming.
After the year the Tories have had, discipline is now vitally important. This will mean uniting as a party and getting behind their new leader. Sunak will need to show true leadership and conviction by sticking to his guns. This will mean keeping Braverman in post and locking the 'right' into Government. Sunak has already made a U-turn by intimating that he will now go to COP27 after all. Sunak would do well to take a lesson from the failed Liz Truss experiment; if she hadn’t U-turned on the 45p tax rate the domino effect may not have taken place. No one is really comparing Sunak to Truss, but the point remains: the media will be hungry for a story, and if this period of calm is to continue, he needs to be sure to shape events rather than simply responding to them.
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