Rishi Sunak’s government is testing the limits of the word ‘unity’

The rapid departure of Gavin Williamson from cabinet after just 14 days is not only destabilising to Rishi Sunak’s new premiership, but illustrative of a wider issue that is almost certain to cause the prime minister major headaches further down the road.

To put it simply, coming into office as a new prime minister after 12 years of your party holding power guarantees that you will have a lot of baggage dragging you down. A PM who wins power in a general election – as Tony Blair and David Cameron did – arrives at the head of a team of people who have been working together towards that goal for years.

The appointment of a cabinet is often simply a matter of transferring individuals from their shadow roles to the same briefs in government – though this was complicated for Cameron by the need to share out jobs with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners.

Flushed with victory and eager to make change, a team of newcomers can be expected to maintain unity and common purpose at least for their initial period in office, as they merrily set about reversing the decisions of the former government now consigned to opposition.

Contrast that with Sunak’s position. Not only has he got 12 years of Tory-led government behind him, making it barely credible for him to blame “the other lot” for the UK’s current woes; he has also got former ministers from four previous premierships – those of Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – sitting on his benches (not to mention three former PMs still hanging around in the Commons).

That means a lot of rival factions, a lot of disgruntled people who are used to wielding power and feel entitled to carry on doing so, and a lot of mutual grudges and tensions that have been simmering for a long time.

Johnson and Truss dealt with the problem by appointing exclusively from their own inner circles, and by doing so sowed the seeds of their own downfall by creating large cohorts of backbenchers with little or no loyalty to them and good reason to want them gone.

The implosion of the Truss administration effectively forced Sunak to take the opposite approach, constructing a “unity” cabinet from across the party. That’s why his top team has the appearance of a cut-and-shut hybrid made up Frankenstein-style from elements of the cabinets of his predecessors.

Some – Steve Barclay, Mark Harper, Mel Stride – are Sunak’s people, whom he would have chosen if granted a completely fresh start. But there are also representatives of the Cameron years, such as Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove; allies of Johnson, like James Cleverly and Ben Wallace; and even members of the short-lived Truss ascendency, most prominently Suella Braverman and Chris Heaton-Harris. (Interestingly, among them only Williamson first came into cabinet as a key member of May’s administration, which has otherwise virtually vanished from the front benches.)

All of this has resulted in a government carved up between different tendencies in the party – with economic policy largely dominated by centrists, while sensitive cultural issues like migration and Brexit remain in the hands of the right. It’s a recipe for division, as “big beasts” from all sides feel entitled to rule the roost in their own domains.

And it’s a perfect arena for score-settling. As seen with Williamson, these people have been around for a long time, and have inevitably gathered their share of internal enemies and opponents who will be looking for opportunities to bring them down.

Sir Gavin may have broken records for the shortest tenure as a minister, but he will not be the last to leave the Suank administration, as this government tests the meaning of the word “unity” to destruction.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor