Opinion
By Azu Ishiekwene
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak came to the job as an
afterthought, yet his days in Number 10 were numbered
before he received the ceremonial blessings of King
Charles III.
For a long time after Brexit, the Tories and sections of the
British public, still in post-Brexit ecstasy, were madly in
love with Boris Johnson. He was incompetent and a
congenital liar but a good poster boy of that era. After
David Cameron fell on his sword, the Brits wanted
someone to extend the comedy of post-Brexit, and
Johnson was a good fit.
Then came COVID-19, a global crisis that tested the
leadership of nations. Johnson, US President Donald
Trump, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro were
perhaps among the world’s most incompetent leaders of
the pandemic era. Their denial and mishandling of the
situation took a tragic toll on their citizens.
The former Sunak
In Britain, Sunak was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the
time. While he let his appetite for beer get the better of
his judgment once or twice during the lockdown, his
boss, Johnson, observed lockdown rules only in the
breach. As the British economy – like economies around
the world – reeled under the effects of COVID-19,
Johnson, the sailor of the British ship, was floating on his
sea of beer in garden parties while, at the same time,
asking people to keep the rules he was breaking.
Much of the credit for steering Britain through that
problematic time must go to Sunak, whose programmes,
including £330 billion in emergency support for
businesses and a furlough scheme, helped keep the
country afloat.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the chaotic
Johnson era ended. You would think Sunak would
naturally step in, given his outstanding role in managing
the COVID-19 crisis and his sound knowledge of the
economy.
But no. The mild air of xenophobia, which was also partly
responsible for Brexit, had heavily infected Tory
backbenchers, too. Even though Sunak’s parents (with
Pakistani and Indian roots) immigrated to Britain from
East Africa in the 1960s, in a world where you discount
identity politics at your own risk, there was still a certain
“otherness” about Sunak’s ancestry, his family fortune
and his Hindu religion, that made the British
establishment uncomfortable.
Britainistan
With Sadiq Khan as London Mayor, Suella Braverman in
the Tory top brass and Hamza Yousaf highly placed in
Scotland – not to mention Savid Javid and Priti Patel –
the rising profile of Indians and Pakistanis, the Raj-
anisation of British politics, real or imagined, was a
concern. But there was even a more profound concern –
the rising economic clout of these ethnic minorities.
In 2017, the Indian diaspora in the UK was estimated to
contribute around six percent of the country’s GDP, and
by 2019 the combined wealth of this ethnic nationality
was estimated at £338 billion. With an average income of
£34,300 in that same year, British Indians had the highest
average income among ethnic nationalities in that
country.
When it was time to replace Boris Johnson, the country
that copied Piper’s art from Egypt and popularised it
didn’t need anyone to tell the Tory party that handing
over the keys of Number 10 to Sunak could signal the
echo of an unfamiliar tune. They kicked the idea of
having Piper Sunak further down the road.
Liz mishap
Instead, they settled for Liz Truss, a former rebel and
basher of the Crown, but a Brit, through and through, to
lead the party. Truss didn’t last; her incompetence
threatened to bring Britain to its knees. The Tories soon
got rid of her, but apart from further endangering the
British economy, her brief reign had also emboldened
the Labour Party. Keir Starmer, Labour leader and the
next British Prime Minister is a gift to Britain from Tory
hubris.
After the fall of Truss, with the Tories bereft of options
and confronting the threat of an early election,
backbenchers exhumed Sunak to clean up the Augean
stable. Things were so bad two years ago when Sunak
was chosen to lead the Tories that The Economist’s
October 19, 2022 edition likened the situation to Britaly,
a sarcastic reference to the carnage in Italy in the 1940s.
Inflation in Britain was at a record high, with basic
foodstuffs and energy prices going through the roof.
About 33 percent of the population outside fixed
mortgage contracts was struggling to pay, and the British
economy, which was 90 percent the size of the German
economy, had shrunk to 70 percent.
Sunak record
The story is different today. Inflation is down 2.8 percent,
compared to around 8 percent two years ago, and
unemployment is also down. The British economy is
more robust than two years ago, and fewer people
outside fixed mortgages struggle to pay. All of that would
hardly matter now. As Britain goes to the polls, Sunak has
only one in four chances of keeping his seat, and the
Tories are bracing for one of the worst defeats ever in
nearly two centuries.
Fourteen years of Tory reign have tested the party’s
ingenuity and revealed its resilience, especially in the
wake of COVID-19 and the aftermath of Russia’s war in
Ukraine. But the years have also revealed Tory dark racial
underbelly and brought upon it the inevitable
consequences of overstay and familiarity. The party was
rotting from the inside. Sunak only managed to defer its
eventual collapse.
But Sunak was not a saint. He was not altogether
blameless. Those who cheered the rise of the first non-
Caucasian to Number 10 are shocked that the pair of
Sunak and Braverman, both ethnic minorities, has
inflicted a human repatriation policy worse than anything
known in recent history.
Weep not Africa
Africa will not shed a tear at his departure. The continent
owes him nothing. In his two-year premiership, he only
used “Africa” when discussing the UK-Rwanda asylum
repatriation in Parliament. His nearest visit to the
continent where he was born in 1980 was at the English
Channel, from where immigrants were bundled off to
Rwanda in defiance of the rulings by the European Court
of Human Rights (EUHR) and the UK Supreme Court.
His penchant for dodging Parliamentary scrutiny, the
perception that he lacks the common touch, and his
inability to rein in party rebels have also combined to put
a nail in his political coffin.
But Britain will remember him as a godsend in its hour of
need. I’m not too worried about what’s next for Sunak. A
brief look at what far less gifted former British Prime
Ministers are doing shows that he’ll be all right.
Next life
Boris Johnson earns significant amounts from speaking
and writing, as do Gordon Brown, David Cameron and
Teresa May. Tony Blair, unfairly despised as the poodle
of George Bush because of the war in Iraq, even earns up
to £200k for a single speech and has the Tony Blair
Institute, which advises governments worldwide.
This must feel like a funeral moment for the Tories and
the obsequies of the third prime minister in five years.
But Sunak is young and immensely gifted. He is not
finished quite yet. His death might have been slightly
exaggerated.
Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and
author of the new book Writing for Media and
Monetising It.
