September 11 2001 was a good day to bury bad news. It seems Rishi Sunak had the same approach today, but the opposite way around: have some bad news, so create a day to bury it.
Braverman was all over the headlines over the weekend, and it looked bad for him. For a government that promised integrity, breaking the Ministerial Code wasn’t something he could easily forgive, and for a political lightweight such as Sunak, political challengers are something best avoided. Openly forgiving her and allowing her to continue wasn’t an option, and neither was making a significant deal of her resignation. Bringing in David Cameron as foreign secretary probably wasn’t because he is particularly well regarded in foreign affairs – he isn’t – but rather because he needed something to make the headlines today that wasn’t a disaster of his own making. And, frankly, it worked. You may well not be aware that Sunak got a no confidence letter submitted about him today, and you’re not to blame.
This means David Cameron’s return to frontline politics is, effectively, a symptom of Rishi Sunak’s political cowardice, which itself is an almost inevitability of his lack of parliamentary or public mandate. But what does it mean?
To begin with, not only is dragging a former Prime Minister back to hide your weakness a significant symptom of said weakness, but especially so for Rishi Sunak. He has very few political allies he can draw upon. He is seeking to move the Conservative Party away from the socially liberal and optically centrist May-Cameron era. Johnson most likely isn’t a name Sunak wishes to have attached to his own, particularly given that both were issued fixed penalty noticed. Truss is Truss. This is not Sunak drawing on a longstanding ally who is well versed in the relevant area of political life.
Nor is it Sunak shifting his direction of government back to a centrist one, even if Matt Hancock believes it is. For one, Sunak lacks the mandate to make such decisions, as is evidenced by the Braverman situation – he doesn’t have the capacity to pull all the strings of government, only those begrudgingly granted to him by MPs who didn’t put him there but knew Truss had to go. Not only this, but Sunak is doing everything he can to appease the so called New Conservatives – socially conservative 2019 Tories who have a big focus on reducing immigration but also on “gender critical” views – amid a discussion that they’re encouraging Braverman to make a leadership bid. Sunak’s given them a string to pull in the form of Esther McVey. And whilst the meeting didn’t go successfully – Sky News says less than 10 MPs turned up – a loud group of co-ordinated backbenchers probably isn’t great for a weak PM.
There is another explanation of what Cameron’s return may be a symptom of, and I think it may be this in addition to the aforementioned. Sunak has a narrow pool of MPs that won’t cause him problems. Given the reason behind his weakness is his lack of parliamentary mandate, this isn’t surprising – Conservative MPs never actually gave him the go ahead. They just didn’t stop him. His appointment to one of the great offices of state has already caused him some problems, and he’s already almost guaranteed to lose the next election, so he may well be looking for somebody with no leadership ambitions to quietly do their job. I imagine this isn’t an easy feat in any Conservative Party, let alone today’s.
Regardless of the diagnoses, today marks a day where Sunak’s government is diagnosed with something. He can figure out what it is, but there will be new challenges to navigate. What happens if he wants to sack Cameron – or, worse still, his loud backbenchers do? Sunak’s fixed the headlines today, but complicated an already difficult balancing act in the process.
Lewis Compton 