Britain's pragmatic new premier.
Efforts to pigeon-hole Sunak tell us more about those making them than about him
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Rishi Sunak makes his first speech as Prime Minister outside 10 Downing Street
Many outside the UK who don’t closely follow the intricacies of British political life (and some in Britain too) appear to be baffled by the UK’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
They are finding it difficult to place him on the political spectrum. A convinced Brexiteer, he is nevertheless perceived to be part of a trans-national financial establishment associated with the EU.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he spent vast amounts on the furlough scheme and other financial assistance to get the country through the Covid pandemic. This led some to accuse him of helping promote a left-wing “big state” to seize control of people’s lives — even though he fought in Cabinet against the second lockdown in September 2020 because he thought the epidemiological evidence at that time didn’t justify such a measure. And even though he is more Thatcherite than many others in his party.
These efforts to pigeon-hole Sunak tell us far more about the people making them than they do about him. Outside the feverish imaginations of culture-warriors, people are complicated. They don’t necessarily subscribe to any ideology. They don’t fit into neat categories.
The reaction to Sunak brings to mind the joke about a Jew in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, the battle between Protestant unionists and Catholic republicans. A Jew is faced by a menacing mob in Belfast. They demand to know whether he’s a Protestant or a Catholic. “I’m a Jew!” he protests. “Ah,” comes the rejoinder, “but are you a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?”
Here’s what we know about Sunak. He is a Hindu who was born in Britain. His parents, who were born in Africa of Indian Punjabi descent, migrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. His father is a doctor and his mother is a pharmacist. Rishi was head boy at Winchester College, one of Britain’s most intellectually demanding independent schools; he gained a first class degree in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford university and an MBA at Stanford before working for Goldman Sachs and hedge fund companies. His wife is the daughter of an Indian billionaire.
This personal history has led to claims that he can’t speak for the British people because he’s rich and privileged. This is a spiteful and ignorant prejudice.
Sunak’s parents epitomise aspiration, hard work and humility, principles they appear to have transmitted to their son whose achievements are due to his outstanding intellect and self-discipline.
The disadvantage of his progress from one insulated and privileged institution to another, however, is the tin ear he has previously displayed to the way ordinary people think. Despite — or because of — his accelerated rise to the top of the Conservative party, he has behaved as a political naif.
That’s why he got himself into so much trouble by not anticipating the public blowback against both his wife’s “non-dom” status that exempted her from paying UK taxes on her overseas earnings (a status she subsequently reversed), and his own US “green card” that allows permanent residence in America and that he held while he was Chancellor until he returned it in October last year ahead of his first American trip as a UK government minister.
But Sunak is smart enough to learn from his mistakes and — because he isn’t ideological — is also able to acknowledge what he doesn’t sufficiently grasp and needs to understand.
Above all, he is a pragmatist. He relies on information and factual evidence that he carefully considers before reaching any conclusion.
This means he is cautious. The upside is that his decisions will be prudent. The downside is that he’s unlikely to possess the spark of leadership genius that sees beyond the balance sheet of risks and likely consequences into the hearts of those whose feelings are no less legitimate (faith, family, flag) or illegitimate (Islamist extremism, transgender dogma) for being unquantifiable.
We know that he’s a fiscal conservative, believing that the country has to pay for what it spends. We don’t know how he will conduct foreign affairs.
Although his first phone call as prime minister was to Ukraine’s embattled war leader Volodymyr Zelensky, we don’t know whether he will be as robust in his assistance as was Boris Johnson.
When Sunak was fighting for the party leadership against Liz Truss who accused him of being soft on China and Russia, he said China and its Communist Party represented the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century and he called on British companies to pull out of Russia. We have yet to see how that now translates into practice.
During that earlier leadership battle, he also pledged that, in his first hundred days as prime minister, he would review or repeal the 2,400 post-Brexit EU laws that remain enmeshed in UK legislation. Now government officials have confirmed that target won’t be met.
He is reportedly seeking a new agreement with France to quell the huge tide of irregular migrants whom people-smugglers are ferrying in small boats across the English Channel. Yet all such agreements have failed to address the “pull factor” actually driving this traffic — that Britain is the destination of choice for so many because of the ease with which they can disappear into the country rather than being sent back.
On Israel, Sunak is extremely supportive. Refreshingly, he has declared that Jerusalem is “unquestionably” Israel’s capital and that he would like to move the UK embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — although he has acknowledged the difficulties in doing so. His innate caution and his other, more pressing priorities make that an unlikely prospect.
In terms of political theatre, he h?s made a good start. His attention to detail, sharpness of mind and personal composure enabled him to get the better of the Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer in their first set-piece encounter in the House of Commons this week. But as everyone knows, Sunak faces a perfect storm of crises on many different fronts which would test any prime minister to destruction.
Many in Britain assume that at best he will steady the financial markets and keep the show on the road, but that support for the Conservative party has effectively collapsed. At the next general election, goes this thinking, Starmer will become prime minister; that’s now baked into Britain’s rapidly sinking cake.
Don’t bank on it. While the Conservative party is indeed so deeply fractured it may not survive for much longer, Britain’s political cake isn’t yet baked. In the immortal words of America’s late defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, there are too many unknown unknowns and known unknowns— not the least of which is the performance in office of Rishi Sunak himself.
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