Our Unelected Prime Minister: Does Rishi Sunak Have a Democratic Mandate?
The destructive tailspin of the Truss government ended with her resignation after a record 44 days, and the Parliamentary Conservative Party filled the power vacuum in Number 10 with a politician that they hoped would bring stability and legitimacy to the government – Rishi Sunak. However, Sunak and the Conservatives are still faced with a critical problem reflected by their continuing struggles in the polls: his appointment seems fundamentally undemocratic. Truss had won her election to Party leadership and premiership with 57% of the votes of 141,725 Conservative Party members at the beginning of September yet, following her resignation, Sunak has been placed in power without a single vote cast.
In the British political system, we do not directly elect our Prime Minister, only our MPs. So Sunak’s installation as PM does not clash with any legal democratic frameworks, but it does raise some critical questions over his perceived legitimacy. Sunak was soundly rejected by Conservative Party members in September, who – as just 0.2% of the population – decided our last PM. Now, not even that tiny fraction of a percent of the British public have had a say in the choice of our leadership.
It has been almost three years since the last UK General Election in 2019, which handed the Tories a huge parliamentary majority, but the political landscape has fundamentally shifted since. Johnson’s 2019 campaign was fought largely over “getting Brexit done”, which has since come to pass, and the COVID-19 pandemic created significant shifts on the national and international levels which are yet to be completely seen. In focussing on Brexit and Johnson’s leadership so heavily in 2019, the Conservatives undermined their future democratic mandate, as a vote to “get Brexit done” does not translate into support for national leadership on other issues. This problem has been compounded by the economic and political chaos that has defined their rule in the last few months. The consequences can be clearly seen in nationwide polling trends: the most recent polls collated by Politico from the 7th of November put voting intention for the Conservatives at just 27%, with Labour at 49%. If there was a General Election tomorrow, the number of Conservative MPs would plummet from 356 to just 103, while Labour would take a significant majority with 455 seats.
Understandably, Sunak and the Conservatives do not want to fight a General Election in these conditions, which would sweep them from total parliamentary dominance to near irrelevance. It is in their best interests to largely ignore the discontent and calls for a General Election, and instead to focus on restoring an image of stability and pragmatism, embodied by Sunak’s businessman persona. However, the current recession and cost of living crisis seem unlikely to disappear overnight and Sunak faces immense challenges to his premiership from the very beginning. Current economic issues, unless resolved, will only continue to harm perceptions of his legitimacy and will draw attention to his lack of democratic mandate. We are yet to see the direction his government will take in the Budget on the 17th of November – but we can guess what it may hold.
Given Sunak’s history on the economic right of the Conservative Party, it seems likely that his response will entail a return to the Cameronite austerity that has defined UK economic policy from 2010 onwards. According to information obtained by The Guardian, Sunak, with Jeremy Hunt as his Chancellor, seems set to lay out £35bn in cuts to public services in a move that will set the UK on a path of further austerity for the duration of the Sunak premiership. He has no opposition to legitimately blame for the nation’s economic woes – having been Chancellor himself for the past two years and with uninterrupted Tory dominance since 2010. A deepening of austerity policies is likely to be incredibly unpopular with the British public, especially among those already hardest hit by the cost of living crisis, and will only further exacerbate struggling approval ratings.
If Sunak continues to pursue austerity to enforce his economic vision as Prime Minister, it will only draw stark contrast with his lack of democratic mandate. The only way to secure that mandate for his agenda would be to win a General Election, but so long as the polls put the Conservatives at such a severe disadvantage, the government will not call for one, and Sunak’s authority will remain questionable. Potentially, the government’s hand could be forced by a campaign of mass public discontent as the economy continues its downturn, and Sunak’s position could become more vulnerable if he is forced to act without proper democratic support. Alternatively, if he manages to present himself and his government as a pragmatic and stabilising force in contrast to the recent Conservative administrations, the party’s electoral outlook may improve by 2024. Whether it could improve enough remains open to question. It may seem impossible to imagine people forgetting the failures of recent Conservative government, but it is important to remember that Conservative John Major succeeded Thatcher in 1990, confounding expectations of a public desire for change given her notoriety. It’s always possible that Sunak could do the same.
Without an election or a proper mandate, Rishi Sunak’s premiership is tenuous. Were an election to be held now, it seems clear that he stands no chance of winning. But he can avoid that – and if he can hold onto power for the two years until the next General Election, it’s possible that we could yet see another five years of Tory rule and all that that would bring.
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