Rishi Sunak

Besieged British Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the first Indian-origin immigrant to take up the high post, has called for a July 4 general election which was due in October/November.

His government is facing multiple crises. The economy has not recovered from the economic shocks of Covid-29 and from the increased oil prices since Russia declared war on Russia in February, 2022. Sunak has also been pressing with the controversial plan of deporting unwanted migrants to Rwanda through an agreement with the Rwandan government. The plan is opposed by human rights activists and others. But Sunak has been hell-bent on going ahead with the plan to transport the migrants to Rwanda.

There have been five Conservative prime ministers when David Cameron led the party back to power after 13 years of Labour rule under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. When Cameron resigned after the country voted narrowly in the referendum to leave European Union (EU), dubbed Brexit, Theresa May took over but she could not resolve the nitty-gritty of leaving EU in double-quick times. Boris Johnson, who became an eager Brexit advocate, became prime minister and called for election on the promise that he will get Britain out of EU. He won a larger mandate in 2019, including some of the Labour bastions. He shone for a moment as the Churchllian leader he fancied himself to be.

But the shenanigans of his 10 Downing Street staffers during the Covid lockdown, and Johnson’s refusal to accept the truth, had created a furore in the country as well as within his own party. He was forced out of office.

He was succeeded by an unprepared and immature Liz Truss who defeated Sunak in the party leadership contest, but could not hold office beyond two weeks. That brought in the ambitious and untested Sunak into office. He became the fifth prime minister in 12 years. But he managed to hold on for the last two years because he was willing to hold a firm line on the economy after serving enough incentives, including cash transfers to the ordinary people, during the Covid lockdown.

But there was no economy turned around as inflation persisted and the ‘cost of living’ crisis had become too big to be dissolved. He is still confident that his policies will pay off, but the people are both and angry and tired with the economic stalemate.

Labour has found a doughty leader, Keir Starmer, who succeeded the far-too-left and erratic Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 and he led the parliamentary opposition with quiet grit, taking on the prime ministers every Wednesday in the House of Commons in pure pugilistic style. There are doubts whether he has the capacity to handle the economic crisis of Britain if he were to win the July 4 election, which he is billed to win because Labour is leading the Conservatives by 20 points in the opinion polls.

The impression of Starmer is that he is a good fighter, but leading a government and the country require other qualities. The advantage that Labour and Starmer enjoy is that the people in general are disenchanted with the Conservatives, and they want a change in government.

Britain has slipped to the sixth position in terms of the size of the economy with India taking the fifth slot. Britain has turned out to be a mature democracy accepting a coloured prime minister of a country that lorded over the colonies in Asia and Africa for nearly a century. It is now a truly multi-ethnic and multi-religious country, where every British citizen irrespective of his or her origin, can claim to sit at the high table of power. Sunak the prime minister proved the point. But the people want a government that can sort out the economy more than anything else.