Labour should be very worried about Rishi Sunak

Unless something even stranger than we’ve become accustomed to happens, Rishi Sunak will soon be prime minister. It’s good news for the country because he will clean up the mess left by his immediate predecessors – and, as the first premier since Benjamin Disraeli from an ethnic minority background, he is a small, but encouraging symbol of change in a society still disfigured by racism. He’s perfectly able to do the job, and that makes a change.

Sunak is bad news for Labour and the opposition parties, and they may as well face up to it. The Tories have got themselves a decent new leader; but also a new “narrative”. That’s what they really needed above all – a sense of what this government is actually for. What is its aim and purpose – in practical terms? The answer: fixing the economy. Tough choices now, better times ahead. No more chaos and confusion. Simple as that, and endlessly repeated.

We can see the outlines of it already, and the trajectory. Sunak has pledged that: “There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead.” So that’s two of Labour’s foxes shot before he even gets going.

But “it’s the economy, stupid”, and if Sunak gets that story right, there’ll be less attention paid to the tax arrangements of his family and their unimaginably vast wealth, which are major weak points.

This is how it’s supposed to run: there will be a difficult year to 18 months, but gradually the public finances will recover, growth will pick up, and so will wages and living standards. Inflation will eventually subside. Then the long, hard, slog of the next year or so will be rewarded with selected tax cuts in the spring of 2024, aimed squarely at the disillusioned middle classes and skilled working people, the ones the Tories have lost since 2019.

It doesn’t matter to Sunak whether they live in Ashfield or Abingdon. With inflation coming down, interest rates and mortgage bills will start to edge down too. By the summer to autumn of 2024, memories of the graft, drift and blunders of the Johnson and Truss premierships will be fading. Voters do have short memories.

So that’s the “new” Tory story – short-term pain for long-term gain. It was tried and worked during the first three terms of Tory rule in the 1980s and 1990s.

This is all frankly terrible news for Labour and the opposition parties. If, as seems likely, the Tories will be taking all these tough decisions within a clear medium term fiscal framework, endorsed by the Office for Budget Responsibility, accepted by the markets and in harmony with the Bank of England – then what would Labour do? If they oppose spending cuts, then which taxes would they increase? If they oppose the tax hikes, then what would they cut instead? Or would they borrow, and follow the mistakes made by Truss and Kwarteng (admittedly Tories, but aberrant and disowned ones).

Just as they did in the past, Rishi Sunak will be able to present his government as fresh and new, albeit with a “traditional” Tory quality to it. Labour may be compassionate and caring – but unwilling to make painful choices and put the nation’s long-term future first. Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt understand that if they can regain their party’s reputation for economic competence, then the next election will be a much closer call than anyone thinks possible now.

It has already begun. First, come what Hunt calls “eye-watering choices”. Taxes will go up and there will be cuts in public spending. Neither will be sugar-coated. They will, though, be as “fair” as a Tory government can be expected to be, or at least presented as such. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng made a brief and unsuccessful attempt to make the British people forget about fairness and distribution – dividing up the notorious pie – in favour of “growing the pie”, which was rejected not just for its ridiculousness, but because the public were unconvinced that massive tax cuts for the rich would suddenly “unleash” enterprise and investment.

For the next couple of years, there won’t be much senseless boosterism or fanciful talk about how Brexit opportunities will unleash Britain’s potential. Instead, there will be rather dry talk of deficits and debt. It won’t be presented as “austerity” as such, though it may feel that way. It will be about the country living within its means.

The only people who can wreck the Sunak government are the members of his own party. So factional and hate-infused is the Conservative Party of today, that many on the right of the party will simply refuse to work with or support Sunak and Hunt on tax. Others, on the “one nation” wing, will rebel against cuts to public services. The markets will prevent Sunak and Hunt from turning to borrowing.

So the administration, even with its nominal Commons majority of more than 70, will struggle to get budgets passed and cuts implemented, leaving aside resistance from unions and public opinion. It could get quite chaotic. Again.

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Despite his impressive tally of MPs’ nominations, the hatred for Sunak runs deep in his own ranks. Even if he can persuade Britain to accept some sacrifices, he will find much more determined opposition within his own party because it is he who is asking for them. Many of them regard him as illegitimate, with no mandate of any kind. They think of him as a backstabber, the man who betrayed Johnson, his former sponsor, and who caused the summer leadership crisis.

Some even think Sunak has organised some sort of globalist Remainer conspiracy, encompassing the civil service, the “mainstream media”, the Bank of England, the IMF, the City, Wall Street and the trading rooms of east Asia. Some now want a general election just to spite him. Some are defecting to Reform UK, which is the successor to UKIP and the Brexit Party.

This is, in fact, whence many of the Conservative nationalists of today originated or were radicalised during the whole Brexit phenomenon. These Farageistes have held the Tories and the country ransom for too long.

For most of his party, Sunak is not just a new leader, but a man with a plan for economic and political recovery. That is new. Labour should be worried.