THE race to replace Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales has boiled-down to the last two contenders, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss — a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and the current Foreign Affairs Minister, an Englishman of Indian descent versus an Englishwoman from Oxford.
Both have the credentials for the job that only one can get; and the two former members of Johnson’s Cabinet will go toe-to-toe and head-to-head between now and September 5, when postal votes by members of the ruling Conservative Party will choose either Britain’s first prime minister of Indian heritage, or its third woman prime minister (after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, both Conservatives).
Sunak and former Health Minister Sajid Javid, the latter of Pakistani origin and grown-up in Bristol, led the palace coup that eventually dethroned Johnson, but Javid fell-out in the first round of the race, leaving Sunak leading all-the-way since.
Unlike Sri Lanka where the parliament voted to replace the departed Head of Government between elections, it’s the MPs of the UK’s ruling Conservative Party who’ll choose the candidates for prime minister between polls — and the 160,000 ordinary members will then decide by ballot.
The two finalists have naturally ultimately ditched all diplomatic niceties and protocols to face-off directly in what’s left of the race, hammering it out mainly over taxation and inflation issues.
Sunak is from the rich British elite, married to a billionaire wife domiciled in India and therefore not liable to taxation as a registered ‘Non-Dom’ (Non-Domiciled) UK citizen; and he also had a US visa for 15 months while serving in Johnson’s Cabinet.
Sunak is already coming under pressure from Truss and others for his taxation policies that have included what his opponents describe as “Britain’s highest tax burden in seven decades” and the country facing its highest inflation rate in 40 years.
The debate continues over whether British voters are ready for a well-suited Englishman of Asian origin or a third woman PM, a trusted Johnson supporter who voted against Brexit but also led negotiations for its exit.
Unlike in Sri Lanka where the opposition parliamentarians have a vote (and a say) in who would be the next President, Britain’s opposition Labour Party is a mere witness to the changing of the Tory guard, which will also decide who’ll be the next Prime Minister until the next General Elections, due in just over two years.
The two former Johnson Cabinet ministers — one who literally stabbed him in the back and another who stood by his side even while trying to replace him – can be expected to pull all the stops and publicly wash their political laundry, hanging each other to dry in the court of public preference.
The changing of the guard in Britain has also been playing-out in public in the media, particularly the BBC.
Javid and Sunak, being the first two top Cabinet ministers to resign and causing the largest number of resignations ever to face a British PM, are not likely to be forgotten by the large anti-immigrant Tory electorate; and even though the ex-chancellor has led the popularity contest to date, diehard Tories and Brits who voted for Brexit in 2016 on account of anti-immigrant sentiments can be expected to feel and vote the same in a choice between a candidate of immigrant origin and one of Oxfordian upbringing.
Truss has been a diehard conservative all her political life and as Foreign Secretary, she it was who announced London would impose direct rule on the British Virgin Islands (BVI) following the recent US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sting operation that led to the arrest of the British colony’s ex-premier – a decision only reversed after much protest by CARICOM and OECS member-states, as majority ex-British colonies.
Saying he was the victim of the Tory parliamentary “herd” that had decided to bulldoze him from office, Johnson addressed parliament for the last time Wednesday, ending his thank-you speech quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger’s popular Terminator movie quip Hasta la Vista, Baby!
But Sunak and Truss can be expected to continue to battle over tax cuts and increases, each playing to the gallery of conservative voters who’ll settle for whichever package of promises they feel will better or quicker ease the burdens on their pockets, pocketbooks and debit cards as Britain races towards an 11 per cent inflation rate before the end of 2022.
Johnson was booted out of Number 10 Downing Street just as Britain experienced its hottest day on record this week and Europe was being engulfed by what meteorologists designated “a weather apocalypse” that burned out of control in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece.
It was also the day the European Union (EU) called on the UK and other member-states hooked on Russian oil and gas to cut consumption by 15 per cent ahead of what promises to be Europe’s first winter without the usual levels of Russian energy for heating.
Meanwhile, the EU’s political directorate continues to miscalculate the will or ability of member-states to suffer the same, all together, even while differently affected.
At the same time, the unpredictable weather is playing havoc with Britain, temperatures registered at over 40 degrees Centigrade as the two candidates and their backers continue to fuel local fires across Toryland, in pursuit of political climate change.
Whichever wins the poll to become Britain’s next PM, he or she will have to find and fund the ways and means of putting the campaign behind and effectively addressing the worsening economic situation facing the British public.
Otherwise, like the US Democratic Party ahead of next November’s mid-term elections, if the winner loses the race over the next two years to qualify the party for the UK public’s trust for a third term, the next general elections can spell doom — and gloom — for both ruling parties!
