Last Monday I was writing about a possible ‘Thermidorian reaction’ after a phase of madness in the Brexit revolution. In other words, along with other commentators, I was expecting a clear break with the extremist approach the Brexit movement has increasingly taken since Johnson won the General Election in 2019. The increasingly obvious noxious effects of Brexit on the UK that culminated in the Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget that nearly sparked off a major financial crisis, seem to make a break with the previous course inevitable if not for ideological, then at least for reasons of economic realism.
On Tuesday, the new PM Sunak started to reshuffle his Cabinet. Rather than a clean break with Brexit extremism of the past three years, the reshuffle reflects the disarray in which Brexit has thrown Britain’s governing party. It has become clear that the new PM remains a prisoner of those internal dynamics, which dramatically limits his political leeway. The personnel decisions imposed by the party-internal logics – as it is already becoming clear now – imply that the chaos that marked the Johnson and Truss governments will continue under Sunak and that real issues will be difficult to solve in this constellation.
Sunak blows his chance
PM Sunak promised to run a government that shows competence, compassion, and integrity and talked about accountability and professionalism. The actions that followed the promises were to (re)appointed people like Dominic Raab, Nadhim Zahawi, and Therese Coffey, and most controversial Suella Braverman, to his cabinet. The new cabinet is a mixture of Johnson’s Cabinet– including Michael Gove and Dominic Raab – and bits of the short-lived Truss cabinet. Rather than a clear break, Sunak therefore opted for a continuity with the past two governments. This included keeping Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and NI minister Steve Baker in charge of the Northern Ireland dossier. Most spectacularly, however, only one week after her departure, Sunak reinstated Suella Braverman as Home Secretary.
Some of these appointments can be explained by political pragmatism and debts owed especially to various factions in the party. Indeed, despite a relatively large parliamentary majority, Sunak’s position in the party is weak. In particular, the hostility of the Party’s right-wing to anyone who may show a hint of pragmatism about Brexit is a constant threat looming over Sunak’s premiership. Indeed, Steve Baker had already two weeks ago threatened to bring down the new PM if they were to adopt a softer approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. This pressure from the right will explain why the new PM kept some hard-line Brexiters, like Baker and Braverman, on board. Rather than an error of judgment, politically Sunak may not have had a choice if he wanted to become PM.
Another appointment, however, may more directly reflect Sunak’s own lack of judgement not only in terms of integrity but particularly in terms of competence. Indeed, the reappointment of Dominic Raab as deputy PM and justice secretary is difficult to understand. Raab, does not seem to possess the necessary stature and seriousness required from someone holding a significant office of the state as he has proven during the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. As such, he hardly is an appointment that signals that Sunak is serious about professionalism and competence. One way of explaining why Raab made a comeback is that it reflects what Sunak deems he requires to appease various factions inside the Tory party and amongst its electorate to stay in power. Here, Raab’s appointment may serve the purpose of building capacity for an electorally effective ‘culture war.’ Raab, more than anyone else, symbolises the right-wing Brexiter obsession with the rejection of the international legal order and the definition of sovereignty as not accepting any rules and norms emanating from international bodies. His return to office is expected to lead to the relaunch of the absurd Bill of Rights bill, which constitutes a purely ideological attack on the European Human Rights Convention (EHRC) that serves no practical purpose, but will make relationships with the EU more complicated for no reason other than ideological opposition to international law.
Michael Gove’s appointment as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities, on the other hand, also signals continuity with the Johnson government and spells the return of the ‘levelling up’ agenda, which Truss had scuppered. This may indicate that despite a strong ‘southern’ bias in the Cabinet (which in itself is somewhat ironic given that Sunak is the first MP from a Yorkshire constituency) and Sunak’s evident distain for the substance of the levelling up agenda, he may still harbour some hope that the Red Wall seats the Tories conquered in the 2019 General Election may not yet be lost. What exactly levelling up will look like now that we are back to austerity is unclear. It may well be that some big-splash investment projects and house building plans will be announced and marketed, while with the other hand the government will cut benefits and public services.
Overall, the new Cabinet reflects just how riven with divisions the Tory party is and it is already becoming clear that this is not basis on which to build a more stable government and regain the trust of the public, foreign governments, and the markets. Just how unstable the Sunak government will be is debateable, however. Prof Tim Bale pointed out that Sunak is wrongly seen as a centrist or moderate. Rather, he was an original ‘Brexiteer’ and small state libertarian, Party’s far right may therefore cut him more slack than they did converted Brexiter Truss or turn-coat Johnson. Prof. Bale writes ‘If he is more sensible than Truss and Johnson, both of whom rewarded loyalty rather than talent, and instead reaches across the party when choosing his frontbench team, that could come across an immediate improvement.’ According to Prof. Bale, he may hence be the person able to hold together the divided party.
Clearly, Sunak did reach across the party by reappointing former members of the Johnson government as well as keeping on some from the Truss cabinet and genuine centrists like Hunt. As such there is continuity and a certain breadth that Truss’s cabinet certainly did not have. However, these appointments clearly are the result of internal and external pressures and necessities – keeping the ERG as well as the markets happy – and not based on ‘talent.’ This is the cabinet Sunak needs to stay in power. It is not the cabinet the country needs to solve its problems. As such, we are not that far from the Johnsonite Egocracy. Indeed, I would disagree with Prof. Bale’s characterisation of most Tory MPs as ‘bog-standard Thatcherites.’ There is something distinctly 21st century about the current leadership of the Tory party, which is Thatcherite only in terms of hagiographic references to their most successful recent PM. In substance, they are adhering to a much more sinister libertarian political philosophy of amoral selfishness and ruthlessness whose only goal is to justify one’s personal quest for power. In that sense, whether centrist or not, Sunak is primarily just another egocrat, which means he will put his own career before anything else. Such an approach to running a government is dangerous, because it leads to bad choices. Braverman’s reappointment – possibly necessary for Sunak to become PM in the first place –, already proves to be such a bad choice implying that Sunak’s government is not only a continuation of the Johnson and Truss governments in terms of personnel, but also in terms of chaos.
Is ‘Leaky Sue’ the right person to make our borders tight?
In normal times, appointing someone as Home Secretary who senior Tories have nicknamed ‘Leaky Sue’ due to alleged multiple breaches of the ministerial code only six days after she resigned (or was sacked) from that very same post due to such a breach seems like an astonishing thing to do. Even more astonishing is if that decision were made against the explicit advice of senior officials. In a sign just how much Brexit has eroded the standards of public life in our country, Sunak’s choice makes some political sense. It is a necessary concession to the far right that has taken hold of the Tory party and the media that support it. Conversely, the public outcry over the outrageous disregard for standards in public life is limited, possibly because – having been presented with uncountable examples over the past years – people may start to accept that adherence to standards of integrity set out in the ministerial code or norms of decency applying to the rest of society are optional for those in power. The Braverman reappointment may hence be less surprising in 2022 Brexit Britain than it would have been in normal times.
Still, the decision to reappoint Braverman may come to haunt Sunak very soon. His first week in office was marked by reports about Braverman’s resignation from the Truss government. The official explanation was that Braverman had to step down due to a security breach that constituted a violation of the ministerial code. Over the following days, various – partly contradictory – details of what happened emerged. What we know is that the Home Secretary used a private e-mail account to send a classified document containing information about a ‘growth visa plan’ to a backbench Tory MP, who did not have the relevant security clearance and had business interests that might be affected by the information. It then emerged, that contrary to her own account, that the e-mail was not sent by mistake and that she did not raise the issue with the relevant instance when discovering the mistake. Rather the incident only came to light, because she accidentally copied a person who then referred the matter to the Chief Whip. There are also two slightly different versions of how the incident led to her resignation from the Truss government. One account states that Braverman was in denial about her forced resignation, while a more favourable account suggests she resigned mostly in disagreement with PM Truss about the softening of immigration targets. Regardless, Labour leader Kier Starmer, during Wednesday’s first Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQ) with Sunak, suggested that Braverman’s reappointment was part of a ‘grubby deal’ that involved Braverman agreeing to back Sunak rather than Johnson in the leadership race.
Whatever the reasons for the resignation and her re-appointment, the fact is that Braverman’s reappointment means that Sunak’s government is immediately drawn into the same murky waters in which the Johnson government dabbled for most of its existence. Already on Wednesday SNP leader in the Commons Ian Blackford asked for Braverman to be sacked. Labour has asked for an urgent investigation into the case – something which the government immediately rejected. PM Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi, and Michael Gove had to publicly defend the decision, saying Braverman deserved a second chance.
The Braverman case takes on an even more delicate complexion following another major revelation over the weekend. The Daily Mirror revealed that during the summer Liz Truss’s mobile phone had been hacked and sensitive information stolen (presumably by Russian secrete services) when she was Foreign Secretary. Worse still, the reports suggest that Johnson had ordered a complete media blackout so as not to compromise Truss’s chances of becoming party leader and hence PM.
Taken together these events show in shocking fashion that despite all the jingoism and nationalism that currently dominates the Tory party, when it comes to the reality of running our country, the Tories are simply not serious about issues of national security. This was illustrated by the government’s refusal to take Russian interference in British politics seriously. The new revelations add to that and show that even when it comes to very concrete cases of sensitive data, the interests of the politicians involved are put above the national interest.
For Sunak, the Braverman case means that his government is immediately on the defensive having to defend grand claims about professionalism, integrity, competence, with what increasingly looks like reckless decisions and poor judgement spilling over from the previous governments into the new one.
The Braverman reappointment has another downside for Sunak, namely that it highlights more than would otherwise be the case the failures of the Tories in what is considered a key policy area for them, namely immigration. During PMQ, Sunak defended his decision to reappoint Braverman by arguing she should not be judged on her integrity, but on her ability to reduce crime and ‘defending our borders.’ Yet, on the latter at least, events of the past weeks will cast doubt on her suitability for the job even on the Tories’ own terms. Indeed, the old and new Home Secretary increasingly faces questions about increasing numbers of small-boat crossings of the English Channel, the worsening conditions at immigration processing centres, which were made worse still yesterday by a petrol bomb attack on one centre in Dover. Especially the latter horrific incident may reflect the fact that with the new Home Secretary we have a person in charge who is likely to make all of these issues worse rather than better. Her hateful blustering about sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is the sort of symbolic policy that guarantees her the support of right-wingers, but is impractical and has absolutely no effect on the actual problem, while stirring up popular resentment against the most vulnerable people in our society. As such, Braverman is not only an ethically questionable choice, but it is also very doubtful whether she will be able to deliver on what her right-wing backers expect her to deliver on. If she does not, the soundness of Sunak’s judgement not just in terms of integrity, but also in terms of competence will come under scrutiny.
Pragmatism or fanatism?
That said, there were also some early signs that in some respects, Sunak will indeed constitute a departure from the Truss and possibility even the Johnson governments by showing more pragmatism when it comes to key Brexit-related issues.
Thus, Sunak reintroduced the ban on fracking that the 2019 Tory manifesto promised, but that Truss had scrapped. Sunak repeatedly referred to the 2019 Manifesto during his first week in office, signalling awareness of the fragility of his legitimacy. As the third PM of this parliament, Sunak seems keen to stress the long chain of legitimacy that stretches back from his leadership across Truss and Johnson, to the latter’s 2019 GE victory. The need to prove the legitimacy of his government despite the absence of a General Election, constitutes another constraint on the Sunak government, which limits what he can do – at least if he cares about the popular mandate stemming from that election.
He also undertook steps that signal a willingness to try and establish a more cooperative relationship with the EU. Thus, one of his first actions in office was a phone call with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He also showed pragmatism when it comes to the retained EU laws bill, which former senior civil servants say may create a major chaos when existing EU laws in UK legislation will expire by default due to a ‘sunset clause.’ Sunak seems willing to tune down that bill and also decided to abandon the idea of a new Brexit delivery unit, which he promised during the leadership campaign in the summer, but now considers would take up too much of the civil service’s resources.
Could it therefore be that deep down, Sunak is indeed a pragmatist who will seek to move Brexit Britain into a direction where some of the key issues caused by the UK’s exit from the bloc may finally be solved? In other words, is Sunak a reasonable pragmatist who is being forced by the Brexit ultras in his party to behave like the madman they want him to be?
During PMQ, there were several moments where Sunak sounded just like Johnson – wading into culture war territory, by dissing Starmer about North London and making baseless and unrelated claims about number of police officers. Whether this is out of personal conviction or a result of playing to the gallery is not clear. However, when it comes to some of the most pressing issues – most importantly climate change – Sunak seems just as ideologically blinded as many on the fanatic right of the Tory party. Thus, he has announced that he will not participate in the COP27 climate summit in Egypt and has not changed Truss’s advice to King Charles not to attend – although pressure is mounting from within his own party that he does attend the summit. On the question of whether Sunak the pragmatist or Sunak the ideologue will prevail during his time in office, the jury is out.
Between water and hay
By trying to square the circle of party-internal needs to shore up support within the party, the need to claim democratic legitimacy by tying his leadership to the 2019 manifesto, the need to show pragmatism to solve key Brexit issues and address the UK’s economic woes, and his own ideological biases, Sunak’s government already seems to have manoeuvred itself into a corner.
Nowhere does this become clearer than regarding Northern Ireland and the question of the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP). This week, the deadline for the different Northern Irish Parties to form a power sharing executive at Stormont elapsed without the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) committing to returning to the executive. It is now up to the UK government to decide whether a new election to the Stormont Assembly should be called or whether direct rule from London will be imposed. It was widely expected that London would call a new election on Friday, but the decision has now been delayed and is expected early this week.
Unless such an election dramatically changes the power relations in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it seems difficult to see a way out of the imbroglio. Indeed, the dilemma Sunak faces is the same that prevailed in Northern Ireland since the UK decided to leave the EU’s single market. Chris Grey summarises the impasse perfectly when writing “either there will be no deal, the NIP Bill will pass and be used, causing a crisis in relations with the EU, and with serious implications for relations with the US; or a deal will be done with the EU, the NIP Bill abandoned or its powers not used, and there will be a political crisis within the Tory Party.”
Northern Ireland is not the only Gordian knot the new PM is facing. Another one concerns immigration, where the appointment of the hardliner Braverman means that the economically necessary loosening of immigration policies seems all but impossible given Tory-internal political pressures.
In more than one policy area, then, the PM is stuck in a situation where economic realism requires him to take actions that political realism does not allow him to take. Like Buridan’s ass, torn between water and hay, between the need for political support and for economic pragmatism, Sunak may soon find himself paralysed by the choice whether to starve to death or die of thirst.
The end of a taboo
The Sunak government turns out to be a less clear break from the chaos that has befallen the governing party since the 2015 General Election. The necessity to reconcile the various factions of a deeply divided party seems to put anyone in charge of leading it into a straitjacket that condemns them to fail. The reason for that division and the paralysis of the successive Brexit governments is without a doubt Brexit itself. The Tory party is held hostage by the Eurosceptic fringe which makes it impossible for whoever is in charge to solve any of the issues Brexit has created.
Yet, outside the Tory party and the Brexit bubble, in the real-world things are changing. Last week brought a considerable amount of media coverage on the impact of Brexit on the UK’s economy and society. Thus, the News Agents dedicated an episode to the question ‘how damaging is Brexit?’ This follows various recent commentary and editorials that saw people who are far from sounding the alarm bell over the damaging impact of Brexit. Thus, Tory donor Guy Hands penned an article decrying the Brexit lies and already a couple of weeks ago Telegraph columnist Jeremy Warner argued that Project Fear was right all along. Most importantly perhaps, this week the BBC reported extensively on the negative impact of Brexit on the UK economy.
I have written about the end of the ‘Brexit omerta’ three months ago. After the Trussonomics disaster, that movement seems to be gathering pace and widening. In the real world there are fewer and fewer voices who try to convince the public that Brexit has been or can be a success. The PM still made a passing reference to Brexit opportunities in his inaugural speech; and Brexit ultras like Briefings for Britain still try to convince their readers that the past weeks were not a failure of the deeply flawed and reckless economic policy making that is inherent to the Brexit project, but the result of a ‘Remainer coup.’ These voices will not go away, however clear Brexit’s failure will become to the people outside the bubble, because they are based on conspiracy theories that can attribute any real world damage Brexit does to the country to external factors. The fact of the matter is however, that the public will grow tired of Brexiters’ insistence that we need to be patient to see Brexit’s positive impact to materialise. Indeed, the polls have been showing for a while that the majority of British people have long lost faith in Brexit. Currently 54% think it was a mistake to leave, only 34% think it was the right decision. As the cost-of-living crisis starts biting, as interest rates – including on mortgages – are on the way up and may very well hit 6% next year, as businesses will close down and people become unemployed, it is unlikely the public’s judgement of how Brexit is going will change. The verdict will be clear: Whatever the reasons, what we were promised six years ago has not happened, while things have happened that we were told would not happen outside the EU. Eventually the Brexiters will have to take responsibility for what they have done to the country. The recent return of coverage of Brexit in major news outlets of all colours is crucial to make sure that point comes earlier rather than later.