London Rishi Sunak is the most prominent of the many victims of the biggest defeat the British Conservative Party has ever suffered in its 190-year history. Not because he has added to the list of 251 deputies who have fallen into the pickle this Thursday, but because he announced mid-morning this Friday that he will resign in the coming weeks as leader tory. Once again, as has happened on four occasions in the last five years, the conservatives they will have to look for a leader: they already had to do it to replace Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
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The future of the party and, in short, its continuity in time.
For an impressive machinery of power, which has ruled for 90 of the last 150 years, it seems like an exaggeration. But the risk is existential and pivots, above all, between losing the liberal and centrist soul with which David Cameron clothed it or leaning even more to the right, almost to the extreme right, in which it has fallen since Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss made the group a factory of “populist and simplistic solutions and slogans”, as he wrote this same Friday, in an article in The Times, ex-leader William Hague, the man who made part of the desert crossing during the New Labor years in Downing Street (1997-2010). “Conservatism must be governing, not living on slogans,” said Hague.
Another voice from the more liberal sectors of the party, Cameron’s former finance minister, George Osborne, has added to this demand. “The next Conservative leader will have to win the race from the right and then move the party towards the centre,” he told ITV News. Basically, the same strategy that Keir Starmer has used to get to power.
The question is whether this is possible in the current Conservative Party, which, in addition, will have Farage’s far-right speaker calling from his new position in the House of Commons in favor of policies that are highly valued – fight against immigration, tax cuts and undermining the green agenda – by militancy tory; after all, the roughly one hundred thousand people who will make the decision if there is more than one candidate. The aspirant, male or female, will not hesitate to promise the moon in addition to these other three points mentioned.
The fallen from the center
Some of the fallen MPs are from the more centrist sector of the party, such as Penny Mordaunt, until now leader of the House of Commons; Tobias Ellwood, former Secretary of State for Defence, or former Minister of Justice Robert Buckland. Outside the parliamentary group they cannot aspire to leadership, so the options are reduced.
Among others, three of the most radical women of the Conservatives have survived: all three defend almost extreme right-wing positions on the green agenda, immigration and are extremely libertarian on taxes. They are the former Minister of the Interior Suella Braverman, an extreme defender of the deportations of migrants in Rwanda; Priti Patel, also former Minister of the Interior and the promoter of the so-called shame on youunder the leadership of Boris Johnson, and Kemi Badenoch, former Business Minister.
The three women mentioned have participated in some of the aforementioned races for leadership, but on no occasion have they been successful. This time, however, it will most likely be Suella Braverman who has the most options to at least reach the final decision among the militancy, which has the final say as long as there are two candidates left.
Since Rishi Sunak relieved Braverman of the government last October, the former minister has been a critical voice against the premier, attacking him where it hurt him the most: the immigration front, both legal and that which enters the United Kingdom through the English Channel. The agenda of this daughter of post-colonial emigration has basically been to prepare the ground among militancy for when the moment of succession arrives.
The other most likely finalist in the hypothetical race for leadership tory it would be James Cleverly, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Interior. Much more moderate in form than the previous three co-religionists, deep down he is also a staunch defender of deportations to Rwanda. All of this suggests, at this time, that the name of the future or future leader of the British Conservative Party will be decided under the influence of Nigel Farage, with his eyes on Rwanda and with the Turk’s heads of the migrants as turns. Nothing to do with what Hague and Osborne are asking for.
2024-07-05 19:12:21
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