Rishi Sunak stumbles to year end

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Good morning. As we stumble towards the end of the year, the parliamentary term, possibly to the last few months of a Conservative government, it’s also the last leg of Stephen’s week of leave. So bear with me for today while I guide you through some likely conclusions.

There are a lot of end-of-term political drinks parties and a lot of midwinter viruses. And one can easily lead to another, which is why I am writing this from home with a Lemsip to hand. Here goes . . .

End of days (sitting and ruling)

Both the Commons and the Lords rise for their Christmas break this coming Tuesday, and the end of the year sees Prime Minister Rishi Sunak having survived a serious threat to his authority as he got the second reading of his Rwanda bill through on Tuesday — it’s designed to enable the government to send asylum seekers there to process their claims offshore. 

But Sunak cannot expect it to be plain sailing in January when parliament returns. Those “five families” of factional groupings on the right of the Tory party may have blinked at the last minute but the late reprieve for the bill might have postponed a more difficult rebellion down the line. Some Tory moderates, many of them lawyers, are talking up amendments to strengthen the UK’s compliance with international law. They may well come on side once again and compromise — they are much less combative than the right wingers. But it all prolongs the political agony for the PM and his new home secretary James Cleverly. And when the bill reaches the House of Lords, the non-aligned and extremely unbiddable crossbench peers, who include not just lawyers but senior judges, will be dusting off the ermine as they prepare for a fight. So this one could run and run — proving very distracting for the entire government well into 2024, the year when an election must be called.

Remember two things. One, a few days ago this PM suffered his first Commons defeat (over compensation for the contaminated blood scandal). So that taboo is broken. It showed the Tory whips weren’t necessarily on top of things, and MPs towards the end of a time in power can get very ill disciplined. And two, the insistent focus on irregular immigration has not, so far, been a successful exercise in “taking back control”, to quote the winning Brexit slogan. Number 10 deliberately talked up “stop the boats”, wanting to focus on immigration control as a dividing line with Labour, to appeal to those Brexit-minded voters who supported the Tories in 2019. But the issue has developed its own momentum. 

When the Tory party displays its divisions as it has this week, the less the government can get a grip on the policy substance, in this case immigration or, crucially, on setting the news agenda. In the run-up to an election, Sunak’s team may end up sacrificing a lot of airtime that would be better spent talking up other priorities — whether that is bringing down the tax burden or falling inflation or indeed any other core economic arguments for giving the Tories another chance on polling day. And looking out of control of your own MPs *and* the borders, is a bad look.

Political scientists talk about something called the “cost of ruling”, which essentially means that when you’ve been in power a long time, the public tends to be less favourably inclined. Add this to Sunak & Co falling behind on what this same set of eggheads call “valence” (competence in layman’s terms) and you get a building sense of end-of-days for this administration.

As Professor Jane Green explained in an excellent presentation for the UK in A Changing Europe think-tank last week, the electorate has suffered several “competence shocks” since 2019. Think Covid, Partygate, the cost of living crisis and the Liz Truss “mini” Budget. All have knocked confidence in the team in power, and it is not, as Green (no relation!) puts it, no longer about ideological divides. So going in harder and harder, even on a topic like immigration where you have historically had the upper hand, probably doesn’t help. And certainly not if you can’t demonstrate effective measures. As Kelly Beaver, chef executive of pollster Ipsos UK, told us at the same event, fully 86 per cent of Britons agree with the statement “Britain needs a new team of leaders”.

The problem for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party, though, is that the Ipsos findings showed a deep well of pessimism about the state of the UK. This will be very hard to shift, on top of the challenge of coming up with policies that will actually tackle the country’s problems — given the bleak economic backdrop. But we have most of next year to focus on Labour’s challenge, if Sunak sticks to his plan not to hold an election until late in 2024.

Survival is success

Tricky as things have been for Sunak, I am relieved to see the Tory party has not decided to indulge its perennial taste for regicide again, or certainly not in time for Christmas. And not just because we’re all exhausted by the drama of the last few years. The reason is that last year I was asked to predict whether he would get through as Conservative leader to the end of 2023. I said yes, but looking increasingly beleaguered — so in that professionally important sense, we both made it. And for so many in tough jobs, survival is a measure of success. Who would feel confident repeating the prediction for 2024 though? Not many.

Now try this (please!)

The FT’s Flic charity seasonal fundraiser has created a truly phenomenal way to foster competition between colleagues. We are being auctioned off as lunch guests in the interests of raising money for the excellent Flic initiatives to improve financial literacy. If you would like to bid for a good meal with either Stephen, FT political editor George Parker or myself, do please help us jostle for status with the big beasts — including FT editor Roula Khalaf and economic sage Martin Wolf, whose companionship is for sale too.

I don’t have to open my wallet to natter about politics with Stephen or indeed the peerless George, who I’ve now had the pleasure of working for or with for more than 20 years. Lucky me. But you, dear reader, will have to pay up.

Top stories today

• China warning | Decades of inaction in policymaking to ensure access to critical minerals, such as lithium, graphite and tin, has left the UK vulnerable to China’s dominance of raw materials, a cross-party group of MPs warned today.

• Ministers consider social media crackdown | The UK government is considering a crackdown on under-16s using social media platforms unless they have parental permission, as part of a wider drive to protect children online.

• Still ‘some way to go’ | Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey warned that there was still “some way to go” before inflation hits the central bank’s target. He was speaking after the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee agreed yesterday to keep interest rates at 5.25 per cent.

• Benton by-election? | Rishi Sunak is facing the prospect of another tough by-election after the House of Commons standards committee said former Tory MP Scott Benton should be suspended for 35 days for giving the impression he was “corrupt and for sale”. If the penalty is approved by MPs, it will trigger a recall petition and potentially a by-election.