So it seems we have yet another unelected Tory prime minister. In addition to being Britain’s first British-Asian and Hindu PM, and the youngest PM in over two centuries, Rishi Sunak also has the distinction of being our third PM in seven weeks! This time there wasn’t even ballot for Tory Party members. He just needed 100 Tory MP’s to support him, and fewer than 100 other Tory MP’s supporting anyone else, and he’s in!
Whilst I welcome an Asian as PM, unfortunately it will be used by conservatives to hide the fact that we have millions of people-of-colour who are more likely to be stopped and searched in the street, who are economically poorer and who suffer institutional racism on an almost daily basis. Meantime, Tories will argue, “There is no racism in the UK. We even have an Asian…”
Uniting the Tories?
Sunak is a brexiteer that is still in denial about the devastating effect brexit is having on our economy. He also hopes being a brexiteer will appeal to the party’s ERGers, little-Englanders and the other far-right tagnuts that have attached themselves to the Conservative Party. However, he also has the huge disadvantage of being the “wrong colour” for the swivel-eyed pro-brexit loons he wants to appeal to on the far right. Meanwhile EU remainers distrust him mostly because he is a deluded liar with pathetic loyalty to the discredited débâcle that brexit has become. The expression “shot by both sides” leaps to mind. So any hopes he has of reuniting the Tories are likely to crash and burn pretty quickly too.
Sunak and his wife are worth over £700 million – so he’s hardly in a position to discuss “levelling-up”. His wife did a massive non-dom tax dodge while he watched on. She also received almost £11.6 million in dividends from Infosys – a business which continued to trade in Russia despite the war in Ukraine. So he is at least as bent and self-serving as Boris. He just presents his dishonesty in a slightly less obvious way. The pro-independence National Scot describes Sunak as “defensive, aggressive and consistently dishonest”.
So he’s unlikely to reunite the country behind the Tories either. In fact I doubt he will last much beyond the May local elections. He may not even make it that far.
No Mandate
Fact is he has no public mandate. He wasn’t even voted in by his own party. He merely had over 100 nominations from other Tory MPs. Seems his colleagues think he’s not quite as bent as Boris Johnson – probably – and they don’t want any more kerfuffle, That’s it. Now he’s our prime minister that literally no one voted for!
Worse, he is a Tory – an obscenely rich Tory too. Most of his vast wealth being derived from marring into a billionaire family and the rest from his time as a hedge-fund manager. He will do exactly what conservatives have done here for more than two centuries, namely: preserve the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful.
The underlying cause of this horrendous shitshow?
Sunak is a brexiteer. Supporting brexit has a lot in common with supporting Trump. Right down to the fact that the vote was funded and interfered-with buy the same guy: Vlad Putin.
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36629146
- https://www.csis.org/blogs/brexit-bits-bobs-and-blogs/did-russia-influence-brexit
Brexit has done more economic harm to our country than any event since WW2. Of course wealthy hedge-fund managers have made shitloads of money out of it. The rest of us have become significantly poorer, over 4 million people now relying on food banks, while our economy is swirling down the bog.
Granted, Rishi Sunak will probably last longer than a lettuce – as Liz Truss failed to do in her 44 days as PM. But post-brexit Britain is an economic mess. Unless we seriously rebuild our relationship with our European neighbours, and re-engage and co-operate in its institutions, Britain will remain a shitshow, regardless of which bobblehead the Tories put in charge.
Climate Change
Worse than all of the above, as an MP, Sunak has almost always voted against measures to prevent climate change…
As an aside, his dad was my wife’s GP for a while. His dad actually seemed quite a nice chap. Meantime the Sunak family ran the Chemists shop about 500 metres up the road from my old house in Southampton. Nevertheless, this does not alter the fact that we desperately need a General Election, so we can finally vote out Sunak and all the other vile, self-serving Tory scum Sunak currently leads.
I could not agree more with your article. A main point is for the electorate, the average person in the street to look back on the Tory leadership of the last three years and ask ‘what happened to the so-called democracy that Britain is famed for?’ A prime minister without even a single vote. A prime minister who was rejected by the Tory members only last month is now its leader without a mandate!
How Britain can even declare itself a democracy given the situation is utterly beyond me. Firstly we had Johnson and his one rule for you and another for us style of government, who was forced to resign by his own party. Then a totally farcical leadership election whereby, the clear favorite for PM with the people was Mordaunt, but her own party MPs plotted and schemed to make sure she did not get to the final vote, instead giving us Truss, and what an absolute disaster we know that was! Then a PM without a single vote anywhere. What a joke!
All MPs vow to act in both the country and constituents interests. The mere fact that they 300+ Tory MPs will not agree to an election, which is what the electorate clearly want, shows that all of them have nothing but utter contempt for the opinions of millions. They are out for themselves plain and simple!
Anyone believing that they have any kind of voice in Britain in 2022 when it comes to politics is completely misguided’ the events of the last six months tell you everything you need to know!
Thank you for your comment. I think that aside from a few die-hard Tory voters, pretty much the entire nation is fed up with this nonsense.