Sunak’s crown of thorns

MK Bhadrakumar

Former Ambassador

Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Britain’s PM is a cathartic experience for Indian elites, spontaneous in its emotional release and spiritual cleansing. But our elites often tend to go overboard when it comes to the diaspora in the West. PM Modi called Sunak a bridge between India and the UK. Such lofty thoughts create exaggerated notions. Let us say, Sunak will remain a Briton who reads the Gita and will remain Hindu, but a British politician who will only make his decisions on behalf of the UK.

As caretaker PM, Sunak will be mired in home issues for his survival but he has little political capital to solve them.

A cautious attitude and a pragmatic view is called for, as identity and ideology have become the primary drivers of British politics, and contradictions are bound to arise on that score. Sunak already made one egregious error in the Indian eyes on his very first day in office by reappointing Suella Braverman to the job of Home Secretary. It is doubly ironic because Suella is also of ‘Indian origin’ but has put Mother India in a spot, being an ardent opponent of relaxing immigration in Sunak’s Cabinet, which is an explosive issue in British politics, like NRC and CAA could be in India.

Sunak belongs to the same breed as Italy’s Mario Monti and Mario Draghi, just like a technocratic leader or central banker. He is PM by appointment, neither elected in a general election nor even by his own party or Parliament. The Conservative Party avoided a members’ vote by setting an artificially high first-round voting threshold. It amounted to disenfranchisement of Conservative voters through an electoral stitch-up to ensure Sunak somehow reached Downing Street.

It worked. But the despairing majority of British people are demanding a vote on who runs the country. A YouGov poll last week found that 59% of the British public thinks Sunak should call an election. But Sunak’s party MPs want to avoid an election given their rock-bottom poll ratings, and such a carousel may well help him go round and round till the January 2025 deadline for the next general election.

But politics is unpredictable. Internal dissent cannot be ruled out, chiefly by MPs supportive of Boris Johnson. The Indians who romanticise Britain’s political culture do not realise that skullduggery can pass for ‘democratic values’ in Britain too, and given the optics of ‘ethnic tolerance’ — with the difference, perhaps, that political turmoil is ‘inbuilt’ under the political system in the UK, as rivalry is encouraged both within the Conservative Party and in Parliament, and when the political competition and struggle intensify, political turmoil gets exacerbated.

The possibility of early elections is very high, especially if Sunak fails to tackle Britain’s economic crisis in the next six-month period or so. Powerful interest groups picked this ardent globalist to steer Britain through choppy waters trusting that the immensely wealthy youthful politician is also one of them and can serve their interests. Indeed, he is calm and professional, and won’t try to do crazy things wrecking all their mortgages. But then, there is always the safety net if Sunak fails, since the shadow PM — Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer — will gladly serve their class interests with equal dedication.

The problem today with Britain is that a successful Brexit would require a shift in its economic model. But Boris Johnson didn’t have one and Truss failed to sequence her plan properly. Whether Sunak has a plan we do not know. Clearly, Brexit is not sustainable. Someone has to bite the bullet for the UK to revert to the EU’s single market and customs union without having to reverse Brexit. It entails renegotiating the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) and creating a customs union with the EU. Perhaps, it will have to wait till Sir Keir becomes PM.

Meanwhile, Ukraine hangs like an albatross around Britain’s neck. Sunak’s decision to reinstate Ben Wallace and James Cleverly — both ex-military men — as Defence and Foreign Secretary, respectively, signals continuity in Britain’s approach to global affairs. Neither man backed Sunak in his successful leadership bid but they enjoy Washington’s trust, and Wallace also has connections with NATO circles.

Thus, Sunak’s first call with a foreign leader was with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday night, to tell him that Britain’s support will remain ‘as strong as ever under his premiership’ — as per a Downing Street readout. Earlier in the year, there was talk that Sunak believed a deal would one day have to be done with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sunak, who cut his teeth as a hedge fund manager in London before his seven-year career in politics, must be knowing the strengths and resilience of the Russian economy.

Equally, when serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sunak continued to advocate for a ‘mature and balanced’ relationship with China and sought to improve trade links, resurrecting the China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue. Chinese experts are cautiously optimistic about Sunak’s Treasury mindset toward foreign policy.

Sunak will be holding the foreign policy compass set in Washington on the neoconservative ideology and security. It is debatable, though, how much weight that ‘special relationship’ carries today in world affairs anyway.

The paradox is that Britain’s national decline is leading to growing political polarisation and identity conflict, engendering political instability that also reflects the overall endogenous structural contradictions of capitalism, but the Brexit politicians of the ruling elite remain besotted by the alluring thought of a ‘global Britain’ and are yet to figure out their country’s place in the modern world. Thus, as caretaker Prime Minister, Sunak will be mired in home issues for his survival but he has little political capital to solve them.

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