Disarray in the UK: a summary of British politics since the fall of Boris Johnson
- Francisco Silva
- Oct 28, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2022
“What on Earth is going on in the House of Commons?” The trendy sentence uttered out by a news anchor still holds its relevance nowadays, as the British government has its third Prime Minister (PM) take over. While so much happens around the world, it may be complicated to keep up with such sudden changes. But I will be giving you a summary of the events leading up to the nomination of Rishi Sunak, the first PM of the UK of Asian descent and the youngest to take the role in over two hundred years.
Boris Johnson was elected in July of 2019 following Theresa May’s resignation. Most notably getting a landslide victory in the general elections that year, as well as leading the country through the realisation of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the start of the war in Ukraine, Boris Johnson did attain a positive approval rate at certain points during his time as PM. However, from Johnson-appointed Tory MP’s1,2 being accused of sexual misconduct to the infamous Partygate3, multiple controversies caused his popularity to plummet.
As electoral losses took place, and several Tories quit their government positions in protest of Boris’ scandals, he saw himself forced to resign on the 7th of July of 2022. With that came a new leadership contest featuring plenty of faces, among them being Liz Truss, who has worked in the Johnson government as a Foreign Secretary and backed him to the day of his resignation. Liz Truss would go on to win these leadership elections on the 5th of September, but the country went silent soon after as Queen Elizabeth II died three days later, triggering a 10-day mourning period.
King Charles III was crowned, and as the dust settled from the Queen’s death, Truss’ appointed Chancellor for the Exchequer4 Kwasi Kwarteng presented the new government’s economic plan, involving an unprecedented level of tax cuts to the wealthiest people in Britain, eliminating caps on bankers’ bonuses, and adding restrictions to the country’s welfare systems – arguing that it would bring investment into the United Kingdom and stimulate the economy.
This was widely regarded as an unpopular move, which led to the value of the pound to fall down nearly to the point of parity with the dollar, and interest rates to rise as the Bank of England actively intervened by buying as much as 65 billion pounds in government bonds5 to keep the pound from falling further. Less than a week after the measure was announced, the government admitted to giving up on the idea of giving tax cuts to the richest individuals, but the damage was done, and the markets could no longer trust Truss’ government.
On the 14th of October, Kwasi Kwarteng is sacked from his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and replaced with Jeremy Hunt, who would go on to essentially scrap plenty of the PM’s originally announced plans. Discontentment grows among the Conservatives, who once again start calling for Liz Truss to quit her position, despite her admitting there were “mistakes” done the past couple of weeks.
At around the same time, a quote from an article by the newspaper The Economist goes viral, outlining the risk behind the strategy put forward by Liz Truss and comparing the time taken for her to generate controversy with “the shelf-life of a lettuce”. The comparison would go on to be used by British tabloids and comedians to highlight the prime-minister’s shortcomings. Most notably, a livestream started by the Daily Star titled “Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce?” featuring a lettuce and a framed picture of Liz Truss gathered hundreds of thousands of viewers; and sure enough, the lettuce would go on to outlast the now ex-PM.
The day prior to her resignation was likely the toughest – chaos in the house of Commons ensued as Labour would present a motion to undo a bill Liz Truss put forward that reverted the ban on fracking in the country. Several Tories threatened to vote in favour of this motion despite being ordered to vote against, and there are claims of people being “bullied and manhandled” into voting with the government. On the same day, Home Secretary Suella Braverman would be fired from her position as she breached ministerial rules by sending official government documentation through her personal e-mail. She was since then appointed for the same role again.
It was on that day, the 19th of October, that Liz Truss said she was “a fighter, not a quitter” – and ironically, on the 20th, she announced her resignation. Calls for a general election soared across the opposition, and the polls were unforgiving towards the Conservatives. The news sparked discussion on who would become the new PM, with some predicting the return of Boris Johnson. But as he, and others stood back, only one candidate had enough backing to participate: Rishi Sunak.
Also having been part of the Boris Johnson government as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sunak was more critical of Johnson’s policies and scandals, having resigned in protest, and consequently running for the position of PM, where he lost to Liz Truss. This time, however, he was unchallenged, and officially took office on the 24th of October.
Tension is still high in the UK, and Sunak will have a lot of difficult decisions to make until the next general elections; but the Conservatives seems to be willing to cut him some slack, and it is far too early to take conclusions out of what’s been going on. As many other things in the world currently, the future of the UK government remains an uncertainty.
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1 - “Tory” is a term nowadays used to describe a member of the UK’s Conservative Party.
2 – “MP” stands for “Member of Parliament”.
3 – The Partygate was a scandal in which Boris Johnson was directly involved. Evidence led to the revelation that the prime-minister held a number of illegal parties at Downing Street with several members of government during the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown.
4 – The Chancellor of the Exchequer is an important ministry role, responsible for managing the country’s treasury, as well as fiscal and monetary policies.
5 – Government bonds are basically a form of investment in which an individual lends money to the government for it to spend on managing the country. Government bonds typically come with some form of extra return that is paid along with the money initially invested by the time the bond expires (or “matures”).
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