With under two weeks to go before the Sept. 2 deadline to cast votes, the race for the Conservative Party leadership – and next British prime minister – between Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak appears to be almost decided in favor of the third woman British prime minister.
Meanwhile, the bookie's odds, too, continue to be emphatically in favor of Truss at 88% compared to 12% for Sunak – further corroborating the initial predictions of the political analysts. And, similarly, the results of all the opinion polls are pointing toward this eventuality, unless Sunak comes up with some miraculous formula in the last week to pull off a “stunning comeback” to enter 10 Downing Street. The fact is that from the moment the two were declared as the final candidates, it has been clear that Truss has a big support base within the Tories and she would easily emerge as the winner of this contest. An opinion poll for the newspaper Observer shows that Truss has 61% support of Conservative members while Sunak lingers behind at 39%. One thing is clear though, both of them lack the charisma to ignite enthusiasm. In this poll, which had a long list of questions, when the Conservative members were asked whether they would prefer one of them over the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to run the party and country and offered the choice of Johnson still being the prime minister, or Truss taking over, around 63% of Tory members polled said they wanted to see Johnson still be in charge against 22% who favored Truss. On the other side, 68% said they would still want to see Johnson at Downing Street than being replaced by Sunak, who was preferred by just 19%.
So, the wave of neo-populism is still alive in the U.K. and Johnson, whose claim to fame is "thriving on the crises," is likely to keep casting his shadow over the Conservative Party in the coming days – or may even prompt him to consider another attempt at the premiership in case Truss is unable to steer the country out of the current financial and energy crises. The contest between Truss and Sunak has kindled a new debate in the political and academic circles in the U.K. about the methodology being adopted by the Conservative Party to elect its leader as well as prime minister. “Millions worry about how they will pay their winter heating bills. The U.K. government, meanwhile, is frozen in inaction as it waits for the result of a two-month, presidential-style campaign to elect the next Conservative Party leader and prime minister. After Johnson’s elevation in 2019, this is the second time in three years that a British prime minister has been chosen this way. It would be better not to repeat it,” is how the Financial Times criticized this methodology in its editorial on Aug. 15.
The criticism has two angles: Time and money. Ever since July 7, when Johnson tendered his resignation, there has been a long hiatus in the U.K. government because of this tedious and protracted method of election of the Tory leader. This long pause in the U.K. government has actually paralyzed important decision making at this time when the cost-of-living crisis is aggravating in the U.K. with each passing day. For the last two months, both candidates are running their campaign on the model of an American presidential election on electronic and social media – including a series of national TV debates – to convince 150,000 or so members of the Conservative Party, which makes only 0.32% of the 46.5 million electorate. All this is being done for the last six weeks to vow only a small slice of “undecided voters,” which, as the recent polls have reconfirmed, has not narrowed down the gape between the two candidates since Day One. For a ruling party, whose program has been endorsed in a general election, the replacement of a leader midterm should be channeled through members of Parliament, instead of party members. The voice of party members could be included through consultations between deputies with their party members in their respective constituencies. It would then allow the government to quickly go back to work and start managing the crises of the day. The span of time given to the two candidates is too much by all standards and it has inversely damaged the internal cohesion of the Conservative Party as well.
The long period of campaign has pushed both Truss and Sunak to be sucked into populist pitches. Ironically, in several ways, both the contenders for the premiership are unappealing to their target audience and have already exhibited that they are not beneath populism and demagoguery in their “presidential-style” campaign to win the support of party faithfully. We are witnessing a season of counterfeiters in this race for the Tory leadership. Sunak, despite knowing well that he is far behind in this race, is proving something of an adept in this, diminishing his privileged background in order to gloss and flaunt invisible, underprivileged credentials. At the same time, Truss is also playing on false images, though she is smart enough to do so in a more confident way. After years of dominating the U.K. political landscape, Brexit has been reduced to a minor issue so far in the melee for the successor of Johnson, with sky-rocketing energy bills and the cost-of-living crisis looming large over the contest. Nonetheless, two things are clear: one, Truss is going to be the 78th prime minister of Britain, and two, Johnson’s neo-populism is still sturdy and intact, which may compel him to reenter the ring with more fervor at a suitable time. Truss will inherit a long list of acute challenges – and Johnson will be certainly waiting for her to falter so as to pave the way for his reentry into the fray.
