All is not well in Great Britain where it’s been a rather torrid year for the Tories. They are grappling with their own polycrisis – ranging from a crisis of leadership to sky-high inflation to a sluggish economy to uncontrolled migration and most of all—a crisis of identity.
Recently, the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sacked its most visible minister, Suella Braverman for being more unapologetically conservative than the Conservative party can afford right now. However, Sunak’s attempt at damage control—for her often distasteful remarks on immigrants and the alleged bias of the British Police—surprised everyone.
The surprise did not come from his decision to sack Braverman which was by and large expected after her public defiance of the PM’s office and disregard for ministerial responsibility. It was who he chose to bring on as foreign secretary—a forgotten David Cameron, who had retired from active politics after he lost the Brexit referendum as PM in 2016. Braverman’s ouster and Cameron’s return was done amid a larger cabinet reshuffle. Braverman’s interior ministry portfolio was given to foreign secretary James Cleverly, and Cameron was brought in to replace him.
Bringing back an anti-Brexit Cameron to the political limelight piqued many. Especially since Sunak is from the pro-Brexit camp. Long story short, the political and economic visions of the two men are completely out of sync. Cameron had a pro-China policy as PM in tandem with the Obama administration’s China engagement. Sunak, on the other hand, has projected himself as a China hawk ever since he became the PM in 2022. It adds another layer of asynchrony to Sunak’s ‘united cabinet’.
The surprise winner of this cabinet reshuffle might just be Beijing.
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Unelected leaders
The reshuffle poses another problem when the accountability of Camerson is raised—he is not an elected Member of Parliament. But to be made the foreign secretary, he was first made a Lord (the upper unelected chamber of the British Parliament), which is rare but not unprecedented.
Technicality apart, Rishi Sunak is an unelected PM bringing in an unelected foreign secretary to manage electoral performance in the upcoming general elections. There are no mechanisms to ensure his accountability to the public and scrutiny until then. This is not something that British people have taken well.
The only possible explanation for this hasty decision is that Sunak had run out of patience with Braverman’s petulance. In contrast, Cameron’s political experience, charisma and pragmatism are expected to bring back confidence, legitimacy and unity to the Tories, and a likely resetting of ties with China too. But it’s easier said than done.
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Shredded ministerial unity
Many have welcomed Braverman’s ouster saying the British people need leaders who unite communities rather than create fault lines. Heartwarming as it may seem, the real issues in British politics are a far cry from such politically correct naiveté. And that is where the danger for Sunak lingers.
The dismissal and the reshuffle have shredded the optics of ministerial unity in Sunak’s cabinet in ways that will affect the Conservative Party’s prospects in the upcoming general elections in 2024, Cameron’s political experience notwithstanding. Only a month ago, Sunak, suave and smiling, had put together a show of solidarity and the long-term future of his stable cabinet in Manchester. Sunak has risked quite a lot by this decision.
Braverman does have pockets of support within the party. She has been supported by the MP John Hayes Common Sense Group. She was also the chairman of the European Research Group from 2017 to 2018, which made her a staunch brexiteer.
Accidental PM
The revolving door of Conservative PMs between 2016 to 2022—Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and finally Sunak—has been nothing short of a spectacle. An accidental prime minister in every sense of the term, Sunak had the twin task of saving Britain from economic peril and a crippling disorder in managing asylum seekers. The first task he took upon himself, along with finance minister Jeremy Hunt, and the second he gave to Braverman.
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Unending woes of the British economy
Sunak’s successful stint as exchequer (finance minister) under Johnson had less to do with his innovative decisions to hike public spending and more to do with the Bank of England buying government debt which kept inflation low. The favourable fiscal environment had changed by the time he took over as PM especially since inflation had started to skyrocket. And now, a year later, the country’s economy remains in a downward trend and prospects of recovery look gloomy amid unending conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Policy planning for asylum seekers
Braverman was tasked with effective immigration control, discursively referred to as “stopping the boats”. She was of the opinion that illegal migration cannot be curbed within the current British legal framework and was pressing for legislative reforms.
The Sunak cabinet’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda brought international attention to this legal deadlock. And as luck would have it, a day after her sacking, the apex British court ruled that the Rwanda plan is unlawful; vindicating Braverman’s apprehensions.
Now, Sunak will have to do what Braverman was asking him to do all this while—resort to emergency legislation as the prime minister to block off legal challenges in delivering the Rwanda policy. Instead, he was busy negotiating a new treaty with Rwanda, that will be relevant only at a later stage.
Sunak has also been pressed by other Tories to change the law without delay. Therefore, the latest ruling is not just a setback for the Conservative government but has again raised an issue of confidence in Sunak’s leadership. It has also added credibility to Braverman. It could well be the beginning of her ambitions to run for higher office.
Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle comes when our own external affairs minister S Jaishankar was on an official visit to the United Kingdom. He was in the country to discuss bilateral ties in the larger context of the India-UK strategic roadmap of 2030, and more specifically, the developments on the long-negotiated India-UK Free Trade Agreement.
UK has been negotiating an FTA with the United States of America as well, and the Sunak government would want to secure at least one successful FTA before the elections. New Delhi-London trade has an export advantage for India, unlike trade with China and Russia where India is running massive trade deficits. The FTA is also regarded as a major step forward in taking UK-India trade in goods and services to $100 billion by 2030, as per the objectives of the strategic roadmap.
While problems remain with import duties on a few items, the question of business mobility remains the most contested wrinkle in the FTA. India wants it and the UK, under the Conservatives, is opposing it.
Braverman’s rather emphatic remark, right after she took on the role of interior minister, of Indians being the largest group of visa overstayers had irked India. From India’s perspective, a change in the government might mean fast-tracking the FTA. But does it mean an assured conclusion of the FTA in India’s favour? It is too early to say so.
The spectrum of crises engulfing the empire where the sun once never set has been daunting. In such times, the ‘moderation formula’ applied by Sunak may not translate into better electoral performance—the structural problems of British society remain as seething as ever.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)