What a few weeks it has been in British politics. On Sept. 6, Liz Truss was appointed as Prime Minister after a scandal ridden Boris Johnson was forced out of office by his Conservative Party colleagues. Just two days later, Queen Elizabeth II passed away, sending the country into two weeks of national mourning. And just 43 days after that, Truss has resigned as Prime Minister after a tenure of mistakes, u-turns, flip flops, economic collapse and absolute chaos.
Truss has rightly been deemed the worst Prime Minister in Brit- ish history, being compared by one publication to having the same charisma and shelf life as a lettuce. But what came next after Truss’s resignation was truly a sight to behold. Days of chaos on who would stand to succeed, if the
Government would collapse, and quite possibly the most insane part: If Johnson would stand to take his job back.
Ultimately, however, Johnson did not receive enough support within his party to make a come-back bid eligible, and after all other candidates withdrew, one man remained: Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the British equivalent of a finance or treasury secretary. Though the appointment of Sunak as Prime Minister should rightly be applauded as the first person of In- dian and Asian descent to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, we cannot overlook his many, many faults. Firstly, he comes into the office having failed to receive a direct mandate from the general public, much like Truss.
As the only candidate able to reach a nomination threshold by his fellow members of Parliament, he did not even receive a vote by Conservative Party members like Truss. Sunak also comes into the premiership being rejected by his own party beforehand: He came second in the race to replace Johnson, way behind Truss. He is distrusted and disliked by the members of his party.
We also cannot overlook his personality failings. He fails to connect with ordinary British people, with him and his wife combined being worth almost a billion dollars, making them among the richest people in Britain: even richer than the King himself. How can a Prime Minister connect with someone living on government benefits or liv- ing paycheck to paycheck when he has never felt the same way? How can he feel compassion as he likely has to cut social services in Britain in order to avoid the economic disaster that his own party created?
Sunak enters into the job with a severe test. He has to unify his party after months of infighting and chaos at the expense of British people and the British economy. He has to lead the country through an economic crisis not seen since the recession. However, with his party not showing signs of unity, and a general public not keen on having its fifth prime minister in six years, and its third this year, there is only one way out of this mess, and it’s a better way. That way is with the Labour Party.
Only under a strong and stable Labour Party government with their leader Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister will the United Kingdom be able to end the economic and political crises it faces. Labour understands that in an economic crisis, you need to support people, not corporations. You need to have a unified force to tackle the issues that you were elected to do. Most importantly, however, is that they understand that you need a mandate directly from the people to enact your political agenda.
The Conservatives and Sunak do not understand any of this. The current Conservative government is weak, disunited, and frankly losing steam after twelve long years in office, with its second leader in a row not elected by the general public.
Sunak, in order to legitimize his premiership, should call an early general election. However, with the Conservatives facing almost certain defeat with polls showing them almost 40 percent- age points behind Labour, Sunak is likely not to pursue that path, which would lead the next election to be in early 2025 at the latest. In any case, whether the next British election is in two years or tomorrow, one thing is clear: This current government has no legitimacy to carry on.