London In the UK, former Prime Ministers usually end up in the back benches of the House of Commons in Westminster after their resignation. There they are then eyed suspiciously by their successors and taken more or less seriously. The incumbent British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has three ousted predecessors from his own Conservative Party breathing down his neck – and two of them could pose a threat to him.
The incumbent prime minister has little to fear from Theresa May, who resigned in 2019. Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, on the other hand, are two “political zombies”, currently unelected parliamentarians, who directly or indirectly blame Sunak for their loss of power. However, both ex-prime ministers also have ambitions to significantly influence the political course of Great Britain again.
In the conservative parliamentary group, a “growth group” has already been formed under Truss supporter Simon Clarke, which feels committed to the ideas of the would-be Thatcher heiress. Even Tory grandees like former Brexit negotiator David Frost are flirting with Truss’ ideas, which, according to Frost, the ex-Prime Minister was only too hasty to push through.
This could become another problem for Sunak, who is already battered by scandals and the economic crisis. With her renewed calls for tax cuts, Truss struck a chord with many of the Tories, who fear for their seats in parliament given the poor poll numbers and who consider their prime minister’s fiscal stability course to be far too discouraged and inhibit growth.
Internal party pressure is increasing
Pressure from within the party for a course correction has increased after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published growth figures last week. Of all the major industrial nations, including Russia, the British are expected to have the weakest figure for gross domestic product (GDP) at minus 0.6 percent.
Over the weekend, Truss delivered her 4,000-word memoir of her 49-day tenure in a guest post for her Conservative heartbeat, The Telegraph. Instead of asking forgiveness from her crisis-ridden compatriots for the chaos of her “trussonomics” of unfunded tax cuts, the 47-year-old claimed that her economic and financial policies failed not because of reality but because of “the powerful economic establishment”.
The non-partisan Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) wanted to put her in a fiscal “straitjacket”. Its own finance ministry suffers from chronic “pessimism”. She too made mistakes. But: “When I entered Downing Street, I assumed that my mandate would be respected and accepted. How wrong I was.”
Her party did not support her sufficiently. With her ideas of low taxes and deregulation, she “had to swim against the international tide” and was also criticized by the IMF and US President Joe Biden.
Although she does not name her successor, Sunak, she openly denounces his and Treasury Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s decision to largely reverse her tax cut plans. On Monday evening, in an interview with the conservative magazine “The Spectator”, she did it again.
No, she doesn’t want to be prime minister again, but she wants to fight for her ideas, Truss said. She criticized the fact that independent think tanks like the OBR, with their economic forecasts, restricted the room for maneuver of elected governments. “We’re basically being told what we can do,” said the former prime minister, referring to revenue and spending decisions.
She blamed not only the left-wing orthodoxy of the business establishment for the abrupt end of her term after just 49 days, but also the market turmoil in so-called liability-driven investments (LDI), which use pension funds to cover their obligations. “We didn’t know about these risks,” Truss said.
The response to the comeback attempt came promptly. Business Secretary Grant Shapps, who served under Truss, countered that the former PM had failed to tackle the country’s structural problems, such as high inflation and public debt.
Sunak is under pressure
So Sunak is under enormous pressure, both politically and economically. His Treasury Secretary, Hunt, has already ruled out tax cuts in his proposed budget for mid-March. Hunt also recently presented a growth plan, which was criticized by business and economists as far too vague.
Sunak is cornered by his predecessors.
(Photo: AP)
While the “general theme is encouraging, the details are lacking, particularly in the area of education,” said Jagjit Chadha, director at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).
At the same time, Truss and Johnson sense their second chance: both recently traveled to the United States and were ensnared there by arch-conservative Republicans and think tanks: Truss for their neoliberal economic policies, Johnson for his unreserved support of Ukraine against Russia.
With both coming from the right wing of the party, sooner or later the question will arise as to who should lead the internal opposition within the Tories. Sunak might then have one opponent less, but it doesn’t make it any easier for him.
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