Duizenden racistische reacties op Facebook: ‘Social media maakt niet dat je gevrijwaard bent van de wet.’
Actiegroep Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) doet aangifte tegen een grote groep mensen die zich racistisch hebben uitgelaten onder een foto op Facebook.
De foto werd gemaakt in een van de bussen onderweg vanaf de landelijke intocht van Sinterklaas in Meppel. De reacties onder de foto zijn stuitend.
En in Amsterdam gelijk op het vliegtuig stappen en terug naar je land van afkomst gaan
Dacht dat “zwarte pieten”niet meer welkom waren bij het Sinterklaas feest sturen ze er zelfs 4 volle bussen naartoe!! Klopt volgens mij niet helemaal
Ik zie een domme Piet,een luie Piet,een uitkerings Piet,een inbrekers Piet….
Zwarte piet weg ermee schreeuwt ze. Hele bus is zwart. De chauffeur mooi een enkeltje naar timboektoe laten jagen!! Zwartjoekel op de voorgrond is de sumbalippenpiet
De lijst met verwensingen gaat door, duizenden opmerkingen voorzien van duizenden likes. Woordvoerder Jerry Afriyie van KOZP: ‘Negentig procent beledigend, en de helft ervan racistisch.’
Met de aangifte wil KOZP een signaal afgeven, namelijk: ‘Social media maakt niet dat je gevrijwaard bent van de wet.’
De leden van KOZP verzamelen op dit moment alle racistische reacties. Maandag zal de groep in gesprek gaan met een jurist, waarna zo snel mogelijk een angifte zal volgen.
‘We hebben dit al veel te lang laten doorgaan. Als we allemaal zo verontwaardigd reageren op de commentaren onder de foto van het Nederlands elftal, dan moeten we net zo reageren op de reacties onder deze foto.’
[4]
[4]
DE CORRESPONDENT
HOE ZWARTE PIET LANGZAAM MAAR ZEKER VAN KLEUR VERANDERT
Of je het nu toejuicht of betreurt, het zwartepietendebat heeft het Sinterklaasfeest op zijn kop gezet. Wat begon met een verhitte discussie in een kunstenaarshol in de hoofdstad leidde via enkele veelbesproken arrestaties uiteindelijk tot een heuse lobby, met goed ontvangen lespakketten en de gestage transformatie van een traditie. Samen met andere betrokkenen blik ik terug op vijf veelbewogen jaren.
En wie in 1987 als kind naar Sesamstraat keek, had het ook al kunnen zien. Gerda Havertong zei toen tegen Pino: ‘Sinterklaas is nog niet eens in het land of zwarte mensen, grote mensen en kinderen, worden voor Zwarte Piet uitgescholden… Voor veel zwarte mensen, grote mensen en kinderen, is het helemaal geen feest.’
‘De stereotiepe reactie van ‘blank’ Nederland is het probleem te bagatelliseren. Sinterklaas is een leuk kinderfeest, dat je niet met oneigenlijke acties moet proberen te bederven. De figuur van Zwarte Piet is niet bedoeld als discriminatie. Het is gewoon historisch zo gegroeid. Je kunt kleine kindertjes toch niet verwijten dat ze Sinterklaasliedjes zingen?’
Het artikel leest als een staalkaart van alle argumenten die tegen Zwarte Piet-activisten in stelling worden ‘gebracht.
‘‘We zijn allemaal tegen racisme, maar daarbij gaat het om schandalige gevallen waarin echt gediscrimineerd wordt. Maar wij gaan ons niet kunstmatig opwinden over zoiets onschuldigs als Zwarte Piet, nota bene een kindervriend bij de gratie Gods. Zulke acties maken slapende honden wakker. Onze mensen pikken het niet dat peuters die toch niets van discriminatie weten, voor juniorfascisten worden uitgemaakt.’
Het zou toen nog bijna dertig jaar duren tot de strijd tegen Zwarte Piet landelijk zijn eerste vruchten begon af te werpen. Hoe is dit debat in zo’n stroomversnelling geraakt? En: wat heeft ervoor gezorgd dat de ophef nu wel landelijke gevolgen heeft gekregen?
Het nieuwe pietendebat begon in december 2010, tijdens een bijeenkomst Lees hier een verslag van de bijeenkomst waarmee het allemaal begon.van een diverse groep twintigers en dertigers in Amsterdam. Op initiatief van schrijfster Simone Zeefuik en Bamba Nazar stelden zij zich de vraag die later voor zo veel maatschappelijke beroering zou zorgen: is Zwarte Piet racistisch? Een deel van de aanwezigen wist het antwoord al (ja!) en gebruikte de avond vooral om contact met elkaar te leggen.
De avond was niks nieuws: kleine discussies als deze vonden al veel langer plaats. Toch groeiden ze nooit uit tot iets met landelijke impact. Ieder jaar na 5 december viel de discussie weer stil. Zou het ditmaal wel standhouden?
Ja, zo bleek al snel.
Bij die bijeenkomst in Amsterdam stond een groep activisten op die zich niet alleen in november, maar het hele jaar met Zwarte Piet zou gaan bezighouden.
Het prille begin: een actielijst én het eerste schisma
Een maand na de bijeenkomst kwamen in een andere zaal in Amsterdam de mensen samen die de hoofdrolspelers zouden worden van een nieuwe beweging. Kunstenaar Quinsy Gario bijvoorbeeld, maar ook dichter en blogger Jerry Afriyie en acteur Patrick Mathurin. Ze stelden een actielijst op met manieren waarop ze het racisme dat Zwarte Piet belichaamde aan de kaak konden stellen. Ze zouden politiek gaan lobbyen, besloten ze. En bedrijven wijzen op hun verantwoordelijkheid.
Op grote lijnen was iedereen het eens. Maar wat er precies moest gebeuren en welke toon ze zouden aanslaan, daarover waren de meningen verdeeld. Zo leidde de naam van de beweging tot stevige discussie. Gario stelde ‘Zwarte Piet is Racisme’ voor. Een duidelijk signaal, vonden sommigen. Anderen waren bang dat die wel erg stellig was, dat hij defensieve reacties zou oproepen en juist contraproductief zou werken.
Na nog maar een maand was het eerste schisma dus al een feit.
De Sintintocht die eindigde in de cel
Nog een zwak punt: de discussie speelde zich nog vooral af in Amsterdamse kunstenaarskringen. Dat veranderde echter toen ze de straat op gingen. In de zomer van 2011 knoopten Gario en collega-kunstenaar Jerry Afriyie bijvoorbeeld op het Keti Koti-festival in Amsterdam gesprekken aan met bezoekers. Hun conversation starter: het T-shirt ‘Zwarte Piet is Racisme’. Een klein begin, maar een begin niettemin.
Bij die bijeenkomst in Amsterdam stond een groep activisten op die zich niet alleen in november, maar het hele jaar met Zwarte Piet zou gaan bezighouden.
Het prille begin: een actielijst én het eerste schisma
Een maand na de bijeenkomst kwamen in een andere zaal in Amsterdam de mensen samen die de hoofdrolspelers zouden worden van een nieuwe beweging. Kunstenaar Quinsy Gario bijvoorbeeld, maar ook dichter en blogger Jerry Afriyie en acteur Patrick Mathurin. Ze stelden een actielijst op met manieren waarop ze het racisme dat Zwarte Piet belichaamde aan de kaak konden stellen. Ze zouden politiek gaan lobbyen, besloten ze. En bedrijven wijzen op hun verantwoordelijkheid.
Op grote lijnen was iedereen het eens. Maar wat er precies moest gebeuren en welke toon ze zouden aanslaan, daarover waren de meningen verdeeld. Zo leidde de naam van de beweging tot stevige discussie. Gario stelde ‘Zwarte Piet is Racisme’ voor. Een duidelijk signaal, vonden sommigen. Anderen waren bang dat die wel erg stellig was, dat hij defensieve reacties zou oproepen en juist contraproductief zou werken.
Na nog maar een maand was het eerste schisma dus al een feit.
De Sintintocht die eindigde in de cel
Nog een zwak punt: de discussie speelde zich nog vooral af in Amsterdamse kunstenaarskringen. Dat veranderde echter toen ze de straat op gingen. In de zomer van 2011 knoopten Gario en collega-kunstenaar Jerry Afriyie bijvoorbeeld op het Keti Koti-festival in Amsterdam gesprekken aan met bezoekers. Hun conversation starter: het T-shirt ‘Zwarte Piet is Racisme’. Een klein begin, maar een begin niettemin.
Als de politie ze niet had gearresteerd had het protest nooit zo veel aandacht getrokken. Dan was de beweging nu niet zo groot geweest
In november van dat jaar speelden Gario en Afriyie zich pas echt in de kijker. Bij de tv-intocht in Dordrecht begroetten ze de Sint met hun ‘Zwarte Piet is Racisme’-shirts. Ze werden er een stuk minder vriendelijk ontvangen dan op het Amsterdamse festival: de politie pakte hen op omdat ze de orde verstoord zouden hebben en zonder toestemming zouden hebben betoogd.
Een filmpje Bekijk hier het filmpje van de arrestatie van anti-Zwarte-Piet-betogers in Dordrecht.dat iemand daarvan maakte ging viral. Want waarom werden deze twee jongemannen zo hardhandig opgepakt? Ze hadden toch alleen een T-shirt met een prikkelende tekst aan? Een belangrijk moment, vindt kunstenaar en initiatiefnemer Raul Balai. ‘Als de politie dat niet had gedaan, had het protest nooit zo veel aandacht getrokken. Dan was de beweging nu niet zo groot geweest.’
Bijval, maar ook forse tegenstand
In de jaren daarna professionaliseerde de beweging: de demonstraties op straat werden groter en beter georganiseerd. Een grote betoging op het Amsterdamse Beursplein bijvoorbeeld, trok in 2013 zo’n 800 zielen. Tegelijk nam de weerstand toe. De Facebookgroep Pietitie wist een kleine twee miljoen Nederlanders te verenigen rond een gemeenschappelijk ideaal: ‘kom niet aan Zwarte Piet.’
Zulke reacties horen erbij, weet hoogleraar Transitiekunde Jan Rotmans. . ‘Je ziet altijd heftige weerstand,’ zegt hij. ‘Dat de beweging die weerstand opriep is al een teken van succes, van pijn, afscheid, verandering. Zonder weerstand word je niet gezien en gehoord en heb je geen impact. Er zijn wetenschappelijke theorieën over, dat het niet slim is om er frontaal tegenin te gaan. Hoe slimmer en subtieler je het aanpakt, hoe groter de kans is dat het beklijft.’
Op gesprek bij de burgemeester
Ondertussen sloeg de groep die uit de Amsterdamse meetings was voortgekomen aan het lobbyen. Ze voerde gesprekken met onder meer politici, intochtorganisaties, antidiscriminatiebureaus en scholen.
Politici en bedrijven zich afzijdig: ze negeerden de kritiek liever
Dat de activisten gesprekken voerden met de Amsterdamse burgemeester Van der Laan was voor de buitenwereld een belangrijk signaal, vindt initiatiefnemer Balai. ‘Tot dat moment hielden politici en bedrijven zich afzijdig: ze negeerden de kritiek liever.’
De beweging mocht dan een luisterend oor hebben gevonden, toch wilde Van der Laan Zwarte Piet niet uit de Amsterdamse intocht weren. Jammer, vindt Balai. ‘De burgemeester had bijvoorbeeld ook kunnen zeggen: ik zie in dat dit racistisch is, dus gooi de intocht maar om. Die macht had hij, want de gemeente betaalde mee aan de intocht.’
Piet belandt in het beklaagdenbankje
Ook in de rechtszaal en bij de Nationale Ombudsman begon Piet voor beroering te zorgen. Die aanhouding van Gario en Afriyie in Dordrecht was onrechtmatig, oordeelde de Ombudsman in 2014. Hij noemde de arrestatie disproportioneel gewelddadig en in strijd met mensenrechten.’ (Toch ging het in 2014 bij de nationale intocht in Gouda weer mis: Afriyie werd toen opnieuw hardhandig gearresteerd.)
Gario liet het er niet bij zitten. In 2013 maakte hij bezwaar tegen de vergunning van de Amsterdamse Sinterklaasintocht en werd hij in het gelijk gesteld door de rechter. Zwarte Piet was een negatief en schadelijk stereotype, vond die. Maar tot een echte overwinning kwam het niet: burgemeester Van der Laan ging in beroep en kreeg voor elkaar dat het vonnis vernietigd werd.
Een Utrechtse moeder die een zaak aanspande tegen de school van haar kind had meer succes. Zij stapte naar het College van de Rechten van de Mens (de vroegere Commissie Gelijke Behandeling) en hoorde: scholen die Sinterklaas met traditionele Zwarte Pieten vieren, bieden geen discriminatievrije omgeving. En dus moeten ze het anders aanpakken.
Discussie in de klas en op tv
Inmiddels begonnen scholen Zwarte Piet ook op de agenda te zetten. Zij werden een handje geholpen door de stichting Nederland Wordt Beter (die uit de actiegroep Zwarte Piet is Racisme is voortgekomen). Nederland Wordt Beter bracht het lespakket Sinterklaas & Zwarte Piet uit: een handleiding voor scholen, docenten en ouders om de oorsprong van het Sinterklaasfeest en de discussie rondom de figuur Zwarte Piet in de klas te behandelen.
‘De media hebben over dit lespakket eindelijk neutraal, soms zelfs positief bericht,’ vertelt Devika Partiman van Nederland Wordt Beter. ‘En dat ondanks het feit dat de media Zwarte Piet-critici al jarenlang negatief neerzetten. Stomverbaasd was ik. Dat gaf voor mij aan dat er nu éíndelijk geluisterd wordt naar de bezwaren tegen Zwarte Piet, dat ze begrepen worden.’
En dan waren er nog de films over het racisme van Zwarte Piet, zoals de docu Zwart van Roet van Sunny Bergman. En de Pietmakeover-campagne van onder meer tv-maker Anousha Nzume. (Dit jaar kwam daar het PIET-magazine bij. Nzume vindt het geweldig dat ook Diewertje Blok van het Sinterklaasjournaal het dit jaar in een interview had over ‘Blackface.’ ‘Dat ze die term gebruikt.’)
Inmiddels was Zwarte Piet is Racisme lang niet meer de enige protestgroep. Zo was er bijvoorbeeld de actiegroep MAD Mothers, die zich via internet vooral richtte op (zwarte) ouders. Het doel: zorgen dat zij Zwarte Piet zouden aankaarten bij besturen van scholen en kinderdagverblijven.
Fabrikanten en winkels onder druk
Ook het bedrijfsleven kreeg met activisten te maken. Zo startte MAD Mothers de actie Drie Dwaze Weken, De website van de Drie Dwaze Weken.gericht op de Amsterdamse Bijenkorf. In december 2014 etaleerde die winkel nog grote mechanische zwarte ‘klimpieten’: poppen die in de hal van het warenhuis over touwen heen en weer klommen. De groep besloot een omweg te nemen: ze richtte zich niet op de Bijenkorf zelf, maar op de grote kledingmerken waarmee die samenwerkte.
De aanvliegroute voor die actie hadden ze snel gevonden. Er was net online een filmpje opgedoken waarin Kim Kardashian klaagde over ‘blackface’. Saillant, want Kims zus Khloe zou vlak voor 5 december in de Bijenkorf een nieuwe kledinglijn lanceren. De activisten waren er snel uit: ze gingen zich via Twitter en e-mail richten op de Kardashians en op de CEO’s van modemerken Louis Vuitton en Benneton. De actie had succes: een half jaar later maakte de Bijenkorf bekend haar Zwarte Pieten in te ruilen voor ‘gouden pieten’.
Ook speelgoedfabrikant Fisher-Price, dat Zwarte Piet-poppetjes verkocht, werd het mikpunt van een MAD Mothers-campagne. De groep riep via sociale media haar aanhangers op bij het bedrijf over de poppetjes te klagen. Of dat Fisher-Price op andere gedachten heeft gebracht is moeilijk te zeggen, maar het bedrijf is wel gestopt de poppetjes te produceren.
Andere groepen zetten op een vergelijkbare manier het Amerikaanse moederbedrijf van Sesamstraat en televisiezender Nickelodeon onder druk. Inmiddels is Zwarte Piet niet meer in Sesamstraat en Nickelodeon-programma’s te bekennen. Via MAD Mothers haakte trouwens ook de Amerikaanse documentairemaker Roger Ross Williams aan. Hij maakte dit jaar voor CNN een documentaire over ‘Blackface.’ Zwarte Piet, uitgelegd voor Amerikanen.
Nederland is verdeeld, maar dat is deel van het succes
Opiniepeilingen Lees meer over de opiniepeilingen over Zwarte Piet.doen vermoeden dat steeds meer mensen openstaan voor verandering, en steeds meer organisaties voeren die veranderingen ook daadwerkelijk door. Anti-Piet-activisten prijzen zich (voorzichtig) gelukkig.
Maar tegelijk houdt een andere groep zich steeds krampachtiger vast aan de traditionele Zwarte Piet. Zo schreef de pro-Piet-Facebookpagina Pietitie eind november dit jaar:
‘Gelukkig! Voor het eerst in een aantal jaar lijkt de pietendiscussie verzwakt. Zwarte Piet is terug, EN HOE! Louter Zwarte Pieten gezien bij diverse intochten door heel Nederland. (…) Met jullie als volgers hebben wij een duidelijk signaal afgegeven! BEDANKT!’
Zowel de voor- als de tegenstanders claimen dus aan de winnende hand te zijn in dit debat. En misschien hebben ze allebei ook op een bepaalde manier wel gelijk. Die spagaat hoort bij de overgangsfase waarin de kwestie zich nu bevindt, stelt transitiedeskundige Jan Rotmans.
‘In de overgangsfases ontstaat er chaos, een zoektocht naar nieuwe waarden. Het oude werkt niet meer, maar het nieuwe moet zich nog vormen. In de zwartepietendiscussie gaat dat om vragen als: hoe moet Zwarte Piet er dán uitzien? Moeten we mengpieten krijgen? De komende jaren ontstaat er waarschijnlijk een nieuwe status quo.’
Zwarte Piet gaat hoe dan ook verdwijnen
‘Het is veel mensen intussen wel duidelijk dat Zwarte Piet symbool staat voor veel meer dan een onschuldig figuur in een kinderfeest,’ vindt Anousha Nzume. ‘Hij staat echt symbool voor het racismedebat, voor hoe we in Nederland omgaan met donkere mensen.’
‘En dat hebben we helemaal voor elkaar gekregen zonder geld, zonder een kantoor of werknemers of tijd,’ vertelt Devika Partiman van Nederland Wordt Beter. ‘We vergaderen nauwelijks, zien elkaar maar heel weinig. En toch kunnen we, mede dankzij een lullige Facebookgroepschat en WhatsAppgroep, dit samen succesvol doen.’
Zwarte Piet gaat hoe dan ook verdwijnen, voorspelt Partiman. ‘Ik kan niet zeggen hoelang dat nog duurt, maar het gaat gebeuren. Van de politiek zal het niet komen: die gaat geen excuses maken of Zwarte Piet verbieden. We moeten het hebben van de commercie: winkels en televisiezenders die overstag gaan. En van scholen natuurlijk.’
En als die missie geslaagd is?
‘Dan gaan we het hebben over Nederlands’ koloniale verleden,’ zegt Partiman. ‘En over het effect dat dit tot op de dag van vandaag heeft op de wereld en op Nederland. En ik hoop dat de afschaffing van de slavernij écht nationaal herdacht en gevierd gaat worden.’
Voor dit stuk heb ik gesproken met Jerry Afriyie, Roelof Jan Minneboo, Raul Balai, Anousha Nzume, Sunny Bergman, Barryl Biekman, Marlyn Mimi Mau-Asam, Mercedes Zandwijken, Mitchell Esajas, Devika Partiman, Simone Zeefuik en Jan Rotmans.
REEDS IN DE 30ER JAREN VAN DE VORIGE EEUW VERZET TEGEN ZWARTE PIET!
DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER
IN DE GROENE VAN 1930 VERSCHEEN AL EEN AANKLACHT TEGEN
In april 1930 bracht De Groene een heus Neger-nummer uit – ‘En negers, niets dan negers op de verdere bladzijden. Schrik niet, lezer!’ Een fascinerende read, niet in de laatste plaats omdat er een van de eerste artikelen in staat waarin stelling wordt genomen tegen zwarte piet, De negers in ons huiselijk verkeer.
2012 staat, voorzover ik kan nagaan, nog steeds aan kop. Maar een goede tweede lijkt het jaar 1930. In april van dat jaar brengt De Groene een heus Neger-nummer uit – ‘En negers, niets dan negers op de verdere bladzijden. Schrik niet, lezer!’ Ik kwam twee jaar geleden op Twitter ook al wat verwijzingen naar dit nummer tegen, maar realiseerde me toen niet dat het in z’n geheel te downloaden is via het koloniaal archief van de Universiteit van Leiden. Afgelopen weekend kwam het nummer opnieuw onder de aandacht toen schrijfster Usha Marhe erover schreef op haar blog.
Wat de precieze aanleiding is voor het themanummer heb ik niet kunnen achterhalen. Ik hoor het graag als iemand meer weet. Het is in ieder geval een fascinerende read, niet in de laatste plaats omdat er een van de eerste artikelen in staat waarin stelling wordt genomen tegen zwarte piet, De negers in ons huiselijk verkeer. Auteur is Melis Stoke, een pseudoniem waarachter de joodse auteur Herman Salomonson schuilging. In het artikel maakt hij zich tot ‘tolk van vele negers’ en constateert dat zijn tijdgenoten ‘in gebreke zijn gebleven ze (negers) op te nemen in ons huiselijk verkeer’. Het is een heerlijk fel artikel met nog altijd geldige kritiek op de behandeling en representatie van zwarte mensen. Halverwege het stuk haalt Stoke een literair foefje uit en laat hij zogenaamd een Haïtiaanse vriend aan het woord: ‘Stel u voor – schrijft mij een kennis uit Haïti – dat wij de blanke eens met gelijke munt gingen terugbetalen….?’ Hier wordt Stoke niet alleen een ‘tolk van vele negers’, hij wordt er – in literaire zin – daadwerkelijk eentje. En vanuit dat perspectief gaat Stoke nog dieper en feller in op de (racistische) botheid en onnadenkendheid die zo vanzelfsprekend waren in alle geledingen van het Nederland van destijds.
Toevallig herlas ik gisteren een artikel van Anil Ramdas – Moedwil en kwade trouw bij blanke schrijvers (1997) – waarin hij Nederlandse literaire auteurs de maat neemt die zwarte Surinamers nog altijd verbeelden als primitieve zinnelijke wezens: ‘Het verre land is niet meer dan een akelig decor waartegen de Nederlander zijn verloren liefdes beweent. Maar wat zijn de tropen zonder sensualiteit, wat heb je aan zwarten zonder erotiek? (…) Juist degenen van wie men mag eisen dat zij over de vaardigheid en het talent beschikken om de onzichtbaren zichtbaar te maken, blijken niet meer te kunnen zien dan wat variaties op hun zelfbeeld. Ze herkennen uitsluitend wat ze al kennen en verbannen het vreemde en het onbekende naar de oorden van vage schimmen of exotische objecten van de lust.’
Vergelijk dat met wat Melis Stoke in 1930 schrijft: ‘O, zeker, er is een strooming in uwe letterkunde die zich meer speciaal richt op de intimiteiten van ons liefdesleven, maar onder deze nieuwsgierigheid kan ik geen hartelijke belangstelling vinden. Wij vormen dus om zoo te zeggen een decor voor u, en aan de tegenstelling van ons uiterlijk en het uwe ontleent ge een kleinzielige en belachelijke superioriteitswaan.’
Aan het slot belandt Stoke bij de passage die hem de afgelopen dagen viral deed gaan op internet: ‘En het behoeft nimmer tot verwezenlijking te komen wanneer ge tijdig van uwe dwalingen mocht terugkeeren, door den neger, een eervoller plaats in uwe belangstelling in te ruimen. En aangezien elk opvoedingssysteem zich richt op een komende generatie, moet u met de kinderen beginnen, door bijvoorbeeld op 5 december a.s. een zwarten Sinterklaas te laten optreden, gediend door een wit knechtje…’
Wat waren de consequenties voor Stoke? Stroomden de hatelijkheden binnen op de redactie van De Groene? Werd hij van oikofobie beticht? Ook dat valt niet meer te achterhalen. Ik ben geneigd te denken dat het in die tijd vooral als een zonderlinge overtuiging werd beschouwd. Er moest iets meer dan tachtig jaar overheen gaan voordat dat soort oproepen meer dan een marginaal tegengeluid werden.
EINDE ARTIKEL
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 1 t/m 4/Sinterklaasherinnering
RISHI SUNAK NEW UK PRIME MINISTER/A BLESSING AND A CURSE
”I will bring that same compassion to the challenges we face today.
The government I lead will not leave the next generation, your children and grandchildren, with a debt to settle that we were too weak to pay ourselves.
I will unite our country, not with words, but with action.
I will work day in and day out to deliver for you.
This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.
On 25 november 2022, Rishi Sunak was appointed by king Charles III
as UK prime minister, making him the first British Asian prime minister
in the British history! [1]
I call it a Blessing and a Curse.
Why I call it a Blessing, the reader will soon know.
Why I call it a Curse, likewise.
WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE
Rishi Sunak, who had made career in the Conservative Party from
2014 [2] became UK’s Prime Minister after the former Conservative Prime
Minister, Liz Truss, made a mess of her prime ministership
with her ”cutting taxes for the riches” plan [together with
her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng], which even was
criticized by the IMF [3] and
had to resign after 45 days! [4]
AND ironically, Sunak initially lost the UK prime minister
race from Liz Truss…….[5]
And then, dramatically SHE vanished and HE won
CONSERVATIVE, RICH, AGAINST POOR AND REFUGEES
Look, I am not naive or either a Fool and I know exactly,
where the Conservative Party, which leader Rishi is now,
stands for:
This is the Party of the anti refugee ”pushbacks” [6] and other migration
regulating plans like the Rwanda deal and the favouritism for the ”Australian refugee system [7], from which human rights organisation Human Rights
Watch called ” abusive offshore processing policy” [8]
This is the Party, that wages war on the poor, not
just by the Kwarteng taxes advantage for the super-rich [9], but in general and decennialong.
By welfare cuts, driving poor people on the edge
of hunger [10], which, yet apart from the fundamental violation of social rights [11], reveals
contempt for the Poor [12]
And so was it in the Tory past….
Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the ”Iron Lady” [13] destroyed the welfare state [14] and eventhough that’s a time ago, it’s worth remembring.
But back to Sunak:
That he is no Friend of the Poor, is obvious
Wasn’t it Sunak, who said [presently, in this year 2022, during the energy crisis], that it would be “silly” for the government to provide more help to struggling families now. Despite households across the country facing an average £700 ($879) increase in their gas and electricity bills immediately after April, with another 50 percent spike expected in October, Sunak said he won’t act before “knowing what the situation will be in autumn”…….[15]
YEAH, that’s easy for him to say, since his Family
income is worth more than £700 million ($879 million……..[16]
Some say, that Sunak is richer than the British Royal Family! [17]
Yet I don’t think this comparison is fair:
The British Royal Family was born into this wealth,
built his own Empire [18] and regardless men’s few
about capitalism [I certainly am NOT a fan of those
astronomic differences between the riches and
the poor, as my loyal readers should know] [19], I think it is an accomplishment
of a son of Indian immigrants, whose Indian grandparents migrated to East Africa firstly and
then to Great Britain, building up a newlife again. [20]
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Yet there is another side to this Story.Because however true, that the Conservative Party and it’s new leader, Prime Minister Sunak, is noFriend of the poor and refugees [the most neglectedgroups in society], this is different,For whatever Tory Hardliner [Sunak is in favour ofthe infamous ”Rwanda deal” against refugees] [21],Sunak is also the first Indian UK Prime Minister.The first Man of Colour, who ever had the highestpolitical Office in England. [22]That means something.It is a Historical Achievement and made myskin crawl and not only me, but thousandsand thousands people of colour in England anddoubtless over the world! [23][Now that I write it, I feel that crawling again….] BUT WHY IT GAVE ME THAT SKIN CRAWLINGAND IS THE SUNAK ELECTION SUCH A GRAVE ACHIEVEMENT Because in a way, it is a Victory against the century long Western colonial oppression, not onlyof India [24], but all Asia, Africa, parts of South America and other parts of the World.It is ”The Empire strikes back” againstWhite Supremacy, against the White Man’s Burden doctrine [25] And it is not just the colonial White Supremacy policy:Along came all the British colonial atrocities inIndia, in Africa, in the West Indies [26]Admitted:That is history, but it still has it’s consequences:It still bears bitter Fruits in institutional racism,in opression, in poverty and uneqality [27],not only in England, in all Western countries,once colonial Powers.And of course not all is due to colonialismand racism:Hardline capitalism plays it’s ugly part too.And affects many poor white people too.I don’t close my eyes to that. Back to Rishi SunakThe Bitter Fruits of racism, stemming from colonialism and the Western slavery ridden”concept of race” [28], were tasted by Rishi Sunakhimself:I quote him:
“I was just out with my younger brother and younger sister, and I think, probably pretty young, I was probably a mid-teenager, and we were out at a fast food restaurant and I was just looking after them. There were people sitting nearby, it was the first time I’d experienced it, just saying some very unpleasant things. The ‘P’ word.”
“And it stung. I still remember it. It seared in my memory. You can be insulted in many different ways.” [29]
Painful indeed and reading this, one must realize what a
great achievement it has been, descended from Indian immigrants and tasting racist experiences, not only relatively
”silly” remarks from stupid people in a restaurant, or store, or neighbourhood, but also in real challenges like discrimination in
the job market and in other cases, important in someone’s life,
to climb up in a Party like the Conservative Party and eventually:
Reaching the highest political position in the former Colonial
Motherland:
England.
A Motherland, which had in her clubs in India the rule
[this is NO joke, but real]
‘Dogs and Indians not allowed” [30]
EPILOGUE
I wrote it in the title of this article:”
RISHI SUNAK NEW UK PRIME MINISTER/A BLESSING AND A CURSE”
and that’s just the way I feel it, and with me, others also, as well rejoicing that a man of colour has the highest UK political position, as pointing out the fact, that although an Indian man of colour, he defends Conservative Tory interests, which are clearly not advantageous to the poor Indian community, black community or the communities of other people of colour [31]
BUT YET:
From ”’Dogs and Indians not allowed” [32] tothe Rishi Sunak first speech as a UK PrimeMinister [33], is a great step and an achievementthat crawls my skin.
Rishi Sunak gave his first speech as Prime Minister in Downing Street.
Good morning,
I have just been to Buckingham Palace and accepted His Majesty The King’s invitation to form a government in his name.
It is only right to explain why I am standing here as your new Prime Minister.
Right now our country is facing a profound economic crisis.
The aftermath of Covid still lingers.
Putin’s war in Ukraine has destabilised energy markets and supply chains the world over.
I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Liz Truss, she was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country, it is a noble aim.
And I admired her restlessness to create change.
But some mistakes were made.
Not borne of ill will or bad intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. But mistakes nonetheless.
And I have been elected as leader of my party, and your Prime Minister, in part, to fix them.
And that work begins immediately.
I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda.
This will mean difficult decisions to come.
But you saw me during Covid, doing everything I could, to protect people and businesses, with schemes like furlough.
There are always limits, more so now than ever, but I promise you this
I will bring that same compassion to the challenges we face today.
The government I lead will not leave the next generation, your children and grandchildren, with a debt to settle that we were too weak to pay ourselves.
I will unite our country, not with words, but with action.
I will work day in and day out to deliver for you.
This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.
Trust is earned. And I will earn yours.
I will always be grateful to Boris Johnson for his incredible achievements as Prime Minister, and I treasure his warmth and generosity of spirit.
And I know he would agree that the mandate my party earned in 2019 is not the sole property of any one individual, it is a mandate that belongs to and unites all of us.
And the heart of that mandate is our manifesto.
I will deliver on its promise.
A stronger NHS.
Better schools.
Safer streets.
Control of our borders.
Protecting our environment.
Supporting our armed forces.
Levelling up and building an economy that embraces the opportunities of Brexit, where businesses invest, innovate, and create jobs.
I understand how difficult this moment is.
After the billions of pounds it cost us to combat Covid, after all the dislocation that caused in the midst of a terrible war that must be seen successfully to its conclusions I fully appreciate how hard things are.
And I understand too that I have work to do to restore trust after all that has happened.
All I can say is that I am not daunted. I know the high office I have accepted and I hope to live up to its demands.
But when the opportunity to serve comes along, you cannot question the moment, only your willingness.
So I stand here before you ready to lead our country into the future.
To put your needs above politics.
To reach out and build a government that represents the very best traditions of my party.
Together we can achieve incredible things.
We will create a future worthy of the sacrifices so many have made and fill tomorrow, and everyday thereafter with hope.
Sunak to become prime minister after winning party race
Sunak becomes first UK leader of colour
He will be appointed by King Charles on Tuesday
Warns UK faces a profound economic challenge
LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Rishi Sunak will become Britain’s first prime minister of colour on Tuesday after he won the race to lead the Conservative Party, tasked with steering a deeply divided country through an economic downturn set to leave millions of people poorer.
One of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster, Sunak, 42, will become the country’s youngest leader in modern times – and its third in less than two months – as he takes over during one of the most turbulent eras in British political history.
He replaces Liz Truss, who only lasted 44 days before she said she would resign, needing to restore stability to a country reeling from years of political and economic turmoil and seeking to lead a party that has fractured along ideological lines.
He told his lawmakers in parliament on Monday that they faced an “existential crisis” and must “unite or die”. He told the country it faced a “profound economic challenge”.
“We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together,” he said.
The multi-millionaire former hedge fund boss will be expected to make deep spending cuts to try to rebuild Britain’s fiscal reputation, just as the country slides into one of the toughest downturns in decades, hit by the surging cost of energy and food.
A recent mini budget by Truss, which triggered her downfall, pushed up borrowing costs and mortgage rates, and sent investors fleeing. British government bonds rallied aggressively in the run-up to Sunak’s victory, and extended their gains on Monday.
Sunak, who will be appointed prime minister by King Charles on Tuesday, will also have to work hard to hold Britain’s dominant political party together after some accused him of treachery earlier this year when he resigned from the cabinet of former leader Boris Johnson, triggering his downfall too.
Other Conservatives say he is too rich to understand the day-to-day economic pressures building in Britain, and worry whether he could ever win an election for a party that has been in power for 12 years.
“I think this decision sinks us as a party for the next election,” one Conservative lawmaker told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
PERMA-CRISIS
Britain has been locked in a state of perma-crisis ever since it voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, unleashing a battle at Westminster over the future of the country that remains unresolved to this day.
Johnson, the face of the Brexit vote, led his party to a landslide victory in 2019, only to be driven out of office less than three years later after a series of scandals. His successor Truss lasted just over six weeks before she too was forced out.
Historian and political biographer Anthony Seldon told Reuters that Sunak had the most difficult economic and political inheritance of any British leader since World War Two, and would be constrained by the mistakes made by his predecessor Truss.
“There is no leeway on him being anything other than extraordinarily conservative and cautious,” he said.
He added that Sunak had shown composure when he became finance minister just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit Britain.
Amid the turmoil, polls show that Britons want an election. The Conservatives do not have to hold one until January 2025.
Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party, said the Conservatives had “crowned Rishi Sunak as prime minister without him saying a single word about how he would run the country and without anyone having the chance to vote.”
Labour has held record leads in opinion polls of more than 25 points ever since Truss’s budget sent shockwaves through financial markets.
Economists and investors welcomed Sunak’s appointment, but questioned whether he can tackle the country’s finances while holding the party’s warring factions together.
Many Conservative lawmakers appeared relieved that the party had at least selected a new leader quickly.
Penny Mordaunt, who lost out to Sunak, said his election was an “historic one and shows, once again, the diversity and talent of our party,” she said. “Rishi has my full support.”
Veteran lawmaker Crispin Blunt told Reuters after Sunak met lawmakers in a room in parliament: “The party will remain united, not least because we don’t have a choice. In there, he showed a capacity to marshal the whole party.”
INDIAN ORIGIN
The first real test of unity will come on Oct. 31, when finance minister Jeremy Hunt – the fourth person in the role in four months – is due to present a budget to plug a black hole in the public finances that is expected to have ballooned to up to 40 billion pounds.
The task will be helped by a recovery in the bond market, with the 30-year gilt , which suffered unprecedented losses after the mini-budget on Sept. 23, now recovered to levels close to those seen early on that day.
Sunak’s appointment is another first for Britain – he will become the country’s first prime minister of Indian origin.
His family migrated to Britain in the 1960s, a period when many people from Britain’s former colonies moved to the country to help it rebuild after World War Two.
Sunak attended Oxford University and Stanford University where he met his wife Akshata Murthy, whose father is Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy, founder of outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd. Among the many messages of support, he received “warmest congratulations” from Indian leader Narendra Modi.
END OF THE REUTERS ARTICLE
BBC
NEW UK PRIME MINISTER: WHAT COMES NEXT FOR
RISHI SUNAK?
24 OCTOBER 2022
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62596329
Rishi Sunak will establish a series of firsts when he becomes prime minister – including becoming the first British Asian person to hold the office, and being the first prime minister appointed by King Charles III. But much of the process of the next few days will follow choreography set by decades of tradition.
So what happens now and what can he expect when he does formally become prime minister?
A final word… or two
Liz Truss will hold her final Cabinet meeting at 09:00 BST on Tuesday. As Rishi Sunak is not currently in the Cabinet, he will not be present.
Like many a departing prime minister, she will then deliver a final speech outside 10 Downing Street at about 10:15.
Ms Truss will then be driven to Buckingham Palace to offer her resignation to the King.
This means Ms Truss will miss out on her chance of a goodbye in the House of Commons, as she announced her departure after last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, but is being replaced before this week’s takes place at noon on Wednesday.
In the past that has provided an opportunity for a standing ovation or a tearful farewell from supporters. Last month it gave Boris Johnson the chance to tell the Commons “Hasta la vista, baby”.
Kissing hands
Once Ms Truss has departed the scene – and the UK is temporarily without a prime minister – Mr Sunak, as leader of the largest party in the Commons, will be invited to Buckingham Palace by the King.
The King will ask Mr Sunak if he believes he can form a new government, before the politician is appointed through a tradition called “kissing hands”.
In his autobiography, Tony Blair – who was operating on only one hour’s sleep following his election victory – admitted to being a bit confused when a royal official told him: “You don’t actually kiss the Queen’s hands in the ceremony of kissing hands. You brush them gently with your lips.”
Having been formally appointed as prime minister, the new leader will head to 10 Downing Street – his new workplace and (usually) his new home – although in the past, Tony Blair swapped with the living quarters above No 11 to accommodate his family more comfortably.
Here, at about 11:35, Mr Sunak will make his first prime ministerial speech with the aim of explaining what he wants to do in government.
Margaret Thatcher promised to bring “harmony… where there is discord”, Gordon Brown vowed to “try his utmost”, Theresa May spoke of tackling “burning injustices” in society, while Boris Johnson warned that “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters” would “lose their shirts”.
The plans are for the speech to be outside No 10 – but becoming prime minister in October means there is a persistent risk of rain, so Mr Sunak’s team might be anxiously checking the weather.
The new prime minister will then enter through the famous black door to be greeted by Downing Street staff, who traditionally line up to applaud their new boss. Usually it is all smiles, but not always.
When he arrived, Mr Blair noticed one of the secretaries was in tears. Lord Robin Butler – the most senior civil servant at the time – recalls that Mr Blair asked if she was OK. “Well, Mr Blair, you are welcome,” she replied “but I did so like that nice Mr Major [Mr Blair’s predecessor].”
Who’s up, who’s down and who’s out?
There is not much time for anxious introspection as a prime minister must immediately begin appointing senior ministers, some of whom can prove to be surprisingly elusive, just at the moment the party leader wants to sound them out about accepting a promotion.
Dealing with angry or even eager colleagues is to be expected for a prime minister on their first day. Mr Sunak has yet to set out how he plans to bring together a party riven into factions that have driven out two prime ministers in three months.
Civil servants – government workers who are not politically appointed so do not change with a new prime minister – will have been monitoring the candidates’ various policy pronouncements throughout the leadership campaign and preparing advice.
Mr Sunak has not publicly updated his policy platform since the summer, when he last ran for leader. Since then the economic picture has changed.
Government borrowing costs have increased following weeks of market turmoil set off by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget.
On his first day in the job, Mr Sunak will be presented with briefs from civil servants setting out how his policy plans can be put into action.
“It is a very big pile of paper,” says Lord Robin Butler, who led the civil service under Ms Thatcher, John Major and Mr Blair.
“You want them [the new prime minister] to feel that everything has been thought of.”
Those nuclear codes
At some point during his first few days, the prime minister will have to do something that will put everything else into perspective.
He will sit down and write letters to the four commanders of the UK Trident submarines with instructions about whether he should retaliate in the event the UK suffers a nuclear attack. The letters are stored in a safe on board the submarines, and only opened if contact with the UK is lost.
James Callaghan – prime minister from 1976-1979 – is the only former leader to reveal what he would have done in the event of a nuclear attack.
“If we had got to that point where it was, I felt, necessary to do it – then I would have done it,” he told a BBC documentary in 1988. “I’ve had terrible doubts of course about this. And I say to you that if I had lived after having pressed that button, I would never, never have forgiven myself.”
In 2013, political historian Lord Peter Hennessy told BBC Radio Four: “This is the moment they know what being prime minister is all about – no other job can prepare you for this.”
Phone a friend
The first days of the prime minister’s term are normally filled with phone calls from foreign dignitaries.
President Biden is looking forward to speaking with Mr Sunak in the coming days, the White House Press Secretary said. But they added that it was “protocol for the president to wait until after an incoming British prime minister has met with the monarch and been invited to form a new government to offer his congratulations”.
The congratulations have already started rolling in, though.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted “Special Diwali wishes” to Mr Sunak and “the ‘living bridge’ of UK Indians, as we transform our historic ties into a modern partnership”.
He won after running for the second time this year
He lost to Liz Truss in September, but she resigned six weeks later. In the latest leadership contest, Mr Sunak racked up the support of his fellow MPs early, and fast. He crossed the 100 nominations he needed long before the deadline – including from MPs that had previously backed Truss or Boris Johnson.
He ‘predicted’ financial problems under Truss
He clashed with the former PM during the previous leadership race, claiming her plan to borrow money during an inflation crisis was a “fairytale” that would plunge the economy into chaos.
He is the son of immigrants
His parents came to the UK from east Africa and are both of Indian origin. Mr Sunak was born in Southampton in 1980, where his father was a GP and his mother ran a pharmacy. He went to the boarding school Winchester College, then studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, and business at Stanford in America. He is now the first British Asian prime minister.
He’s only been an MP for seven years
Mr Sunak was first elected as an MP in 2015 – for Richmond in north Yorkshire – but rose quickly, and was made finance minister – or chancellor – in February 2020 under Boris Johnson.
He was in charge of Covid support cash
As Mr Johnson’s chancellor, Mr Sunak was behind the financial aid during lockdowns – including furlough payments and the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme for restaurants.
He’s thought to be one of the richest MPs
His wife is Akshata Murty, the daughter of Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy. Mr Sunak himself has worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs and at two hedge funds. The Sunday Times Rich List estimates the couple’s fortune to be worth about £730m. They have two daughters.
He faced controversy over his wife’s tax arrangements
Over the summer, it emerged Akshata Murthy paid no UK tax on big earnings abroad – which is legal. Mr Sunak defended his wife saying, “to smear my wife to get at me is awful” – but eventually she agreed to start paying extra taxes. We also found out he temporarily had a US green card, allowing him to live permanently in America while he was the UK’s chancellor.
He campaigned for Brexit and deregulation
“Free ports” are one of his long-time favourite ideas: areas near ports or airports where goods can be imported and exported without paying taxes, to encourage trade.
He really wanted to be… a Jedi
In 2016, he told a group of schoolchildren that he originally wanted to be a Jedi Knight when he grew up. His favourite Star Wars film is The Empire Strikes Back.
LIZ TRUSS: A QUICK GUIDE TO THE UK’S SHORTEST-SERVING PM
20 OCTOBER
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62750866
Liz Truss has resigned as the UK’s prime minister after six weeks. Here’s what you need to know about her if you don’t regularly follow politics.
She was the shortest-serving UK prime minister
Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson as leader and became PM on 6 September then resigned 45 days later. The previous record was set at 119 days by George Canning who died in office in 1827.
Her ‘mini-budget’ caused huge economic problems
With her support, finance minster Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled £45bn of tax cuts in her third week. But it was widely blamed for reducing the value of the pound and panicked financial markets. Almost all of it has now been reversed – and Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor.
Some of her own MPs started openly criticising her
Dozens of Tories called on her to step down and her Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned. She had to hire former rivals Grant Shapps and Jeremy Hunt to plug the gaps in her top team.
She went back on what she promised to do
She had pledged to cut taxes and boost the economy but in her resignation speech outside Downing Street, she said: “I recognise that I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
She won a leadership campaign to become PM, not a general election
Only Conservative MPs and party members got to vote to make her leader. After two months of voting she beat the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the final round with 80,000 votes.
We’ll find out next week who will replace her
There will be a much shorter leadership contest that is expected to be over by Friday. She will stay on as leader until her replacement is announced.
We don’t know what she is going to do next
She’s still the MP for South West Norfolk. Before politics she worked for Shell and Cable & Wireless. She is married and has two daughters.
END OF BBC ARTICLE
BBC
LIZ TRUSS: THE TEENAGE LIB DEM WHO
LASTED JUST 45 DAYS AS PM
20 OCTOBER 2022
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58575895
Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister after a chaotic 45 days in Downing Street. But where did she come from and what makes her tick?
A Remain supporter who became the darling of the Brexit-backing Conservative right wing.
A former Liberal Democrat activist, who marched against Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, but claimed to be the keeper of the Thatcherite flame. It is fair to say that Mary Elizabeth Truss has been on a political journey.
She was not a household name, like her predecessor Boris Johnson, when she became PM. But she leaves having made history; serving the shortest tenure of any UK prime minister.
During the leadership election this summer, her promise to return to fundamental Conservative values – cutting taxes and shrinking the state – proved to be exactly what party members, who got the final say over who took over from Mr Johnson, wanted to hear.
And, crucially, as foreign secretary she had remained loyal to Mr Johnson until the bitter end, as other ministers deserted him. It won her favour with Johnson loyalists.
Grassroots Tory supporters of Liz Truss saw in her the steadfast, tenacious and determined qualities they admired in Margaret Thatcher – an image Ms Truss herself has tried to cultivate.
But despite her shifting political positions and allegiances over the years, these words also come up frequently when friends and family are asked to describe her character – along with “ambitious”.
Liz Truss: The basics
Age: 47
Place of birth: Oxford
Home: London and Norfolk
Education: Roundhay School in Leeds, Oxford University
Family: Married to accountant Hugh O’Leary with two teenage daughters
Parliamentary constituency: South West Norfolk
“She’s a very opinionated person in terms of what she wants,” said her brother Francis in 2017, when recalling his older sister’s teenage dalliance with vegetarianism.
“When you go to a restaurant, you might be 14 but she was precocious about what she wants, what she didn’t want.”
When the family played Cluedo or Monopoly, “she was someone who had to win,” added Francis in a BBC Radio 4 profile of Truss.
“She would create some special system to work out how she could win.”
Maurizio Giuliano, a university contemporary who first met her at a Liberal Democrat event, says she stood out from the other students.
“I remember her being very well-dressed compared to other 18 to 19-year-olds. She also had the demeanour of a real adult compared to what we were at that age.
“She was forceful and opinionated and she had very strong views.”
Serious political debate was the order of the day in the Truss household, according to Francis, the youngest of her three younger brothers.
“You didn’t sit around talking about the latest Megadrive game at the dinner table, it was much more issues, political campaigns etc,” he told Radio 4’s Profile programme.
It must have felt inevitable that she would get involved in politics in some capacity when she grew up, but no-one in her family would have predicted the path she eventually took.
Born in Oxford in 1975, Ms Truss has described her father, a mathematics professor, and her mother, a nurse, as “left-wing”.
As a young girl, her mother took her on marches for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, an organisation vehemently opposed to the Thatcher government’s decision to allow US nuclear warheads to be installed at RAF Greenham Common, west of London.
Though she is now proudly a Conservative from Leeds, back then she was a Scottish liberal.
The family moved to Paisley, just west of Glasgow, when Ms Truss was four-years-old.
In a BBC interview, she recalled shouting “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – oot, oot, oot,” in a Scottish accent, as she took part in marches.
The Truss family later decamped to Leeds, where she attended Roundhay, a state secondary school. She has described seeing “children who failed and were let down by low expectations” during her time there.
Some of Ms Truss’s contemporaries at Roundhay have disputed her account of the school, including Guardian journalist Martin Pengelly, who wrote: “Perhaps she is selectively deploying her upbringing, and casually traducing the school and teachers who nurtured her, for simple political gain.”
One Roundhay school mate, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: “It was a really good school, really supportive teachers. Quite a lot of us have gone on to good universities and good careers.”
Although not part of her friendship group, he has clear memories of the young Truss.
“She was quite studious, serious,” he says, with a “heavy social conscience” and part of a group that were into environmentalism.
“I remember a school trip to Sellafield and her asking difficult questions and giving them a grilling. I remember that quite distinctly.”
At Oxford University, Ms Truss read philosophy, politics and economics. Friends recall a well-liked, if frenetic student.
“I remember her determination which was very impressive for me,” says Jamshid Derakhshan, who was studying for a postgrad degree in mathematics when Truss was an undergraduate.
“She was very quick with everything. Going around the college quickly, being everywhere.”
As to what sort of prime minister his old friend will make, Dr Derakhshan says: “My feeling is she’s not going to be stuck with one particular idea, she’s very flexible in her mind and what will be best for the time.”
Ms Truss was involved in many campaigns and causes at Oxford but devoted much of her time to politics, becoming president of the university’s Liberal Democrats.
At the party’s 1994 conference, she spoke in favour of abolishing the monarchy, telling delegates in Brighton: “We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all. We do not believe people are born to rule.”
She also campaigned for the decriminalisation of cannabis.
“Liz had a very strong radical liberal streak to her,” said fellow Lib Dem student Alan Renwick in 2017.
“We were setting up the Freshers Fair stall, Liz was there with a pile of posters, saying ‘Free the Weed’ and she just wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters.
“I was scurrying around after Liz trying to take these down and put up a variety of messages, rather than just this one message all over the stall.”
Her conversion to conservatism, towards the end of her time at Oxford is said to have shocked her left-leaning parents, but for Mark Littlewood, a fellow Oxford Lib Dem, it was a natural progression.
“She’s been a market liberal all of her adult life,” according to Mr Littlewood, who is now director general of the libertarian, free market think-tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs.
“Her political career reflects her ideology – she has always been highly sceptical of big government and privileged institutions who think they know best,” Mr Littlewood said.
She clearly changed parties, but that “was a judgement about what’s the best and most likely vehicle for her to succeed in politics and get what she wants to get done,” Mr Littlewood said.
Nevertheless, what she has described as her “dubious past” came back to haunt her as she tried to convince Tory members she was truly one of them.
At a leadership hustings in Eastbourne, some in the audience jeered, as she told them: “We all make mistakes, we all had teenage misadventures, and that was mine.
“Some people have sex, drugs and rock and roll, I was in the Liberal Democrats. I’m sorry.”
She had become a Conservative because she had met like-minded people who shared her commitment to “personal freedom, the ability to shape your own life and shape your own destiny,” she explained.
After graduating from Oxford she worked as an accountant for Shell, and Cable & Wireless, and married fellow accountant Hugh O’Leary in 2000. The couple have two children.
Ms Truss stood as the Tory candidate for Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, in the 2001 general election, but lost. She suffered another defeat in Calder Valley, also in West Yorkshire, in 2005.
But, her political ambitions undimmed, she was elected as a councillor in Greenwich, south-east London, in 2006, and from 2008 also worked for the right-of-centre Reform think tank.
Conservative leader David Cameron put Ms Truss on his “A-list” of priority candidates for the 2010 election and she was selected to stand for the safe seat of South West Norfolk.
But she quickly faced a battle against de-selection by the constituency Tory association, after it was revealed she had had an affair with Tory MP Mark Field some years earlier.
The effort to oust her failed and Ms Truss went on to win the seat by more than 13,000 votes.
She co-authored a book, Britannia Unchained, with four other Conservative MPs elected in 2010, which recommended stripping back state regulation to boost the UK’s position in the world, marking her out as a prominent advocate of free market policies on the Tory benches.
During a BBC leadership debate, she was challenged about a comment in Britannia Unchained, describing British workers as “among the worst idlers in the world”. She insisted she had not written it.
In 2012, just over two years after becoming an MP, she entered government as an education minister and in 2014 was promoted to environment secretary.
At the 2014 Conservative conference, she made a speech in which she said, in an impassioned voice: “We import two-thirds of our cheese. That. Is. A. Disgrace.”
The speech was little noticed at the time, but it has taken on a life of its own on social media, attracting much mockery and becoming widely shared.
Two years later came arguably the biggest political event in a generation – the EU referendum.
Ms Truss campaigned for Remain, writing in the Sun newspaper that Brexit would be “a triple tragedy – more rules, more forms and more delays when selling to the EU”.
However, after her side lost, she changed her mind, arguing that Brexit provided an opportunity to “shake up the way things work”.
Under Theresa May’s premiership, she became the first female Lord Chancellor and justice secretary, but she had several high-profile clashes with the judiciary.
Her initial failure to defend judges after they were branded “enemies of the people” by the Daily Mail, when they ruled Parliament had to be given a vote on triggering Brexit, upset the legal establishment.
She later issued a statement supporting the judges, but she was criticised by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd as “completely and absolutely wrong” for not speaking out sooner.
After 11 months as justice secretary, she was demoted to chief secretary to the Treasury.
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in 2019, Ms Truss was moved to international trade secretary – a job which meant meeting global political and business leaders to promote UK PLC.
In 2021, aged 46, she moved to one of the most senior jobs in government, taking over from Dominic Raab as foreign secretary.
In this role she has sought to solve the knotty problem of the Northern Ireland Protocol, by scrapping parts of a post-Brexit EU-UK deal – a move the EU fiercely criticised.
She secured the release of two British-Iranian nationals who had both been arrested and detained in Iran.
And when Russia invaded Ukraine in February she took a hard line, insisting all of Vladimir Putin’s forces should be driven from the country.
But she faced criticism for backing people from the UK who wanted to fight in Ukraine.
Her decision to pose for photographs in a tank while visiting British troops in Estonia, was seen as an attempt to emulate Margaret Thatcher, who had famously been pictured aboard a Challenger tank in 1986. It also fuelled speculation that she was on leadership manoeuvres.
Claims she was deliberately trying to channel Thatcher grew even louder when she posed for a photograph in a white pussy bow collar of the kind favoured by the Iron Lady.
But she has always dismissed such criticism, telling GB News: “It is quite frustrating that female politicians always get compared to Margaret Thatcher while male politicians don’t get compared to Ted Heath.”
Ms Truss’s campaign for the party leadership was not free of controversy.
Pressed on how she would tackle the cost-of-living crisis, she said she would focus her efforts on “lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts”.
She has been forced to scrap a plan to link public sector pay to regional living costs by a backlash from senior Tories who said it would mean lower pay for millions of workers outside London.
And she called Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon an “attention seeker”, adding it was best to “ignore her”.
She also got into a spat with French President Emmanuel Macron, who accused her of “playing to the gallery” at a leadership hustings. Asked if Mr Macron was a “friend or foe”, she had said the jury was still out.
But it was domestic issues, or rather one domestic issue, that dominated the sometimes fractious leadership contest with Rishi Sunak.
Ms Truss’s response to the cost-of-living crisis was always likely to define her premiership. And ultimately her time in Downing Street began to rapidly unravel following her disastrous “mini-budget”.
Liz Truss now becomes the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history.
END OF BBC ARTICLE
WIKIPEDIA
LIZ TRUSS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss
WIKIPEDIA
KWASI KWARTENG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwasi_Kwarteng
”On September 23, Truss looked on as Kwasi Kwarteng—her chancellor of the Exchequer, political soulmate, and personal friend—put forward a “mini budget” that would cut taxes on top earners, remove a cap on bankers’ bonuses, and cancel a planned corporate-tax hike. ”
….
….
”The left-wing opposition hated it—tax cuts for millionaires as Middle Britain struggled with high energy bills, rampant inflation, and rising mortgage costs—but so did the financial markets.”
In March 1841, William Henry Harrison became the ninth president of the United States. He gave the longest inaugural speech in history—one hour and 45 minutes—developed a cold, and then, after a mere 32 days in charge, succumbed to a mixture of pneumonia and 19th-century medicine.
According to a persistent, if apocryphal, rumor, Harrison caught that fatal chill at his inauguration. Here in Britain, Liz Truss’s prime ministership was dealt a similarly mortal blow by her own government’s first set-piece event—the launch of an economic plan designed to turn Britain into a low-tax libertarian paradise. Just six weeks into her tenure, her ambitions have shuffled off this mortal coil, rung down the curtain, and joined the choir invisible. They are deceased. They have ceased to be. Truss ran for prime minister on a promise to unleash growth. Instead, she unleashed market turmoil, a fall in the pound, and a precipitous drop in her party’s poll numbers. Even now, she says she wants to lead her party into the next election, as if she had not just immolated her credibility; her longstanding ideological commitment to Britannia Unchained has proved entirely resistant to facts and changing circumstances.
On September 23, Truss looked on as Kwasi Kwarteng—her chancellor of the Exchequer, political soulmate, and personal friend—put forward a “mini budget” that would cut taxes on top earners, remove a cap on bankers’ bonuses, and cancel a planned corporate-tax hike. This was the “biggest package in generations,” he said. Dust off the Laffer curve, silence the “doomsters” worried about where the money would come from, and luxuriate in what even a sympathetic commentator described as a “Reaganite show of fiscal incontinence and Thatcherite derring-do.”
The left-wing opposition hated it—tax cuts for millionaires as Middle Britain struggled with high energy bills, rampant inflation, and rising mortgage costs—but so did the financial markets. Government bonds fell sharply, which left pension funds struggling to stay solvent. Five days later, the Bank of England was forced to step in and stabilize the British economy. A right-wing chancellor had implemented right-wing economic dogma, and the free market swooned—in horror.
At the start of the month, as Truss’s Conservative Party gathered for its annual conference, pressure from her own colleagues led the prime minister to junk her most toxic policy, the tax cut for the rich. She papered over the humiliation with a tone-deaf speech attacking anyone who criticized her as part of the “anti-growth coalition.” These people, she claimed, “prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions … From broadcast to podcast, they peddle the same old answers. It’s always more taxes, more regulation, and more meddling.”
But even this gratuitous dollop of culture-war blather couldn’t restore calm to the markets or the restive ruling party. Everyone could see that Truss and Kwarteng’s authority was shot to pieces. The Economist pointed out that, once the official mourning period for Elizabeth II was taken into account, Truss “had seven days in control. That is roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce.” A tabloid newspaper promptly set up a livestream of a decaying vegetable, to see which lasted longer. The lettuce now looks sad and wilted. So does the prime minister.
Desperate to remain in power, Truss fired Kwarteng on Friday—even though she had signed off on his disastrous proposals. Yesterday, Kwarteng’s replacement, Jeremy Hunt, went on television and unloaded clip after clip into Truss’s cherished economic policies. In three days (his time in the job) and five and a half minutes (the length of his televised statement), Hunt unwound the entire basis of Truss’s leadership so comprehensively that the past month might as well have never happened. It was a bloodbath: “The most important objective for our country right now is stability,” he said, reversing almost all the tax cuts announced in the mini budget. (The subsidy for domestic energy bills was also drastically reduced in scope: This distinctly big-state policy, forced on the government by high wholesale gas prices, was—and still is—extremely costly, and a more cautious leader might have restrained their other plans as a result. Not Liz Truss, though, who had pledged to “hit the ground running.”)
The speed and savagery of Truss’s collapse has been astonishing—particularly because her predecessor, Boris Johnson, won a general election with an impressive majority of 80 seats just three years ago. Back then, the Conservatives looked like an all-conquering horde, even after a decade in power and the protracted agony of the Brexit negotiations.
So what’s gone wrong? Everything. Since taking office, she has made a series of bad calls. She appointed a cabinet of fellow hard-liners, rather than drawing on the breadth of her party. She fired the most senior civil servant at the treasury, because he was too fond of fiscal orthodoxy. She dismissed the strategist who masterminded the 2019 election victory. Her chief of staff has spent his entire tenure embroiled in scandal after it was revealed he was being paid by his old lobbying firm, rather than taking a government salary. She didn’t prepare the country for the top-rate tax cut. Apparently, she was sure that the right-wing media’s adoration would be enough to convince the rest of Britain that millionaires were the group that most needed a break right now.
Even worse, all the way through, Truss has been barely visible, as if her actions speak for themselves. Which, sadly, they have. In the past few days, the Conservatives’ deteriorating polls have indicated that they would not simply lose the next election; they would no longer be the second largest party in Parliament. Unless their fortunes undergo a complete reversal, the Conservatives—who have dominated the postwar period and consider themselves the “natural party of government” in Britain—would suffer a wipeout on the scale of the Canadian center-right in 1993.
Under these circumstances, possible successors have begun to present themselves. Hunt, the new chancellor, has unsuccessfully run twice for the leadership and would love another chance. Penny Mordaunt, whom Truss defeated over the summer, denied yesterday that the prime minister was hiding “under a desk” instead of facing the House of Commons. In doing so, Mordaunt accidentally-on-purpose repeated the accusation. (The headlines and push alerts wrote themselves.) Rishi Sunak, another defeated rival, is also circling—ready to point out that his unheeded warnings about Truss’s economic policies have proved to be prescient. Boris Johnson’s allies are even suggesting that Britain take him back, Berlusconi-style, for another try.
Earlier this year, I wrote that Truss was walking into an economic hurricane. For some reason, she decided the best response to this was to toss fistfuls of cash into the air in the form of unfunded tax cuts. She has failed because she won the leadership by telling her party’s most ardent activists what they wanted to hear. She has failed because she is a born-again Brexiteer, and had already swallowed the lie that reality can be bent to ideology. She has failed because, in a prime-ministerial system, leaders can be expected to implement even their most irresponsible promises—so the link between action and consequence is brutally obvious.
Liz Truss has been cosplaying as Margaret Thatcher without noticing that the Britain of 2022 looks nothing like the Britain of 1979, in either its demographics or its economic problems. Her time as prime minister is a parable of being careful what you wish for: True Trussonomics—Brexit-loving, libertarian, trickle-down—has certainly been tried. Unfortunately, it went about as well as William Henry Harrison’s inaugural address.
END OF THE ARTICLE
”Embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss sacked her Treasury chief and reversed course on a major part of her tax-cutting economic plan Friday as she struggled to hang on to her job after weeks of turmoil on financial markets. But the market response was muted and the political reaction to what many saw as panicked moves left Truss’ credibility in tatters after only six weeks in office.”
LONDON (AP) — Embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss sacked her Treasury chief and reversed course on a major part of her tax-cutting economic plan Friday as she struggled to hang on to her job after weeks of turmoil on financial markets. But the market response was muted and the political reaction to what many saw as panicked moves left Truss’ credibility in tatters after only six weeks in office.
At a hastily arranged news conference, Truss said she was acting to “reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline” by ditching her pledge to scrap a planned increase in corporation tax. Earlier, she fired her close friend Kwasi Kwarteng as head of the Treasury and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt, a long-time lawmaker who has served three previous stints as a Cabinet minister.
Truss is trying to restore confidence and rebuild her credibility with international investors and members of her own party after the “mini-budget” she and Kwarteng unveiled three weeks ago sparked political and economic turmoil.
The government’s Sept. 23 announcement that it planned to cut taxes by 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) without detailing how it would pay for them or offering independent analysis about the impact on public finances raised concerns that government borrowing could rise to unsustainable levels.
That sent the pound plunging to a record low against the dollar and forced the Bank of England to step in to prevent a wider economic crisis.
Truss has now canceled about 20 billion pounds of the originally planned tax cuts.
But her brief, downbeat news conference is unlikely to have reassured Truss’ Conservative Party that she is in control.
“I think she’s just confirmed that she’s not the right person for the job,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “I don’t think it communicated the kind of confidence the country needs right now.”
Despite backtracking on a major part of her program, Truss clung to the idea that her policies were what the country needs to spur economic growth. She also avoided repeated questions about why she should remain in office when she and Kwarteng were equally responsible for the government’s economic plan and the fallout it triggered.
“I am absolutely determined to see through what I have promised,” Truss said.
The initial response from investors suggested Truss’ moves may not be enough to calm financial markets.
Yields on 10-year government bonds rose immediately after her news conference, indicating investors are still concerned about government debt. The pound fell 1.2% against the U.S. dollar.
The next big test for Truss will come Monday when trading resumes on financial markets. The Bank of England on Friday ended its emergency intervention to stabilize long-term bond prices and protect pensions funds.
“Whether or not she remains prime minister, her whole agenda now, her ability to pursue her political project, if you like, is really out of her hands,” said Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, a London-based think tank.
Her fate is now in the hands of the markets.”
Truss is also facing pressure from across the political spectrum.
The opposition Liberal Democrats called for an emergency weekend session of the House of Commons for Hunt to provide more detail on the government’s economic plan. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon called for an early general election. And the BBC reported that a group of senior Conservative lawmakers are planning to call for Truss’ resignation next week.
Truss’ future is in doubt less than six weeks after she took office promising to re-energize the British economy and put the nation on a path to “long-term success.”
A small-state, low-tax Conservative who patterns herself after 1980s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Truss argued that cutting taxes, reducing red tape and courting investment would spur economic growth and generate more revenue to pay for public services.
But the Sept. 23 tax cut plan only provided half of the equation. Without an independent analysis of her full economic program, the added growth it will produce and the additional tax revenue likely to be created, she was asking investors and voters to trust that the sums would in the end add up.
Truss said Friday that Hunt would unveil the full economic plan on Oct. 31, along with analysis from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
James Athey, investment director at the fund manager abrdn, described Truss’ move as a “U-turn on its decision not to U-turn on its profligate tax-cutting policies.″ And, Britain still faces myriad problems, he said.
“Inflation is at multi-decade highs, government borrowing is huge, as is the current account deficit. The housing market is likely to suffer a hammer blow from the jump in mortgage rates and the war in Ukraine rumbles on,” he said.
“We may well be through the worst of the volatility, but I fear that the U.K. is nowhere near out of the woods.”
Conservative lawmakers are agonizing over whether to try to oust their second leader this year. Truss was elected last month to replace Boris Johnson, who was forced out in July.
The weeks of financial turmoil has helped the opposition Labour Party take a commanding lead in opinion polls. A national election does not have to be held until 2024, but many Conservatives fear the party is running out of time to close the gap.
Fractious Conservative lawmakers are scrambling to find a unity candidate who could replace Truss, with speculation centering on Hunt and two of the rivals who lost to Truss in the summer leadership contest: Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.
The International Monetary Fund has hit out at Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cuts for the rich, warning that “large and untargeted fiscal packages” would probably deepen inequality in Britain.
In a rare intervention, the IMF took aim at the British government after the UK chancellor’s mini-Budget on Friday caused sterling and bonds to plummet and gilt yields to soar, reflecting the cost of borrowing.
The market turmoil started after investors were spooked by Mr Kwarteng’s plan to offer tax cuts to the richest while increasing state expenditure dramatically.
“We are closely monitoring recent economic developments in the UK and are engaged with the authorities,” an IMF spokesperson said.
“Given elevated inflation pressures in many countries, including the UK, we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at this juncture, as it is important that fiscal policy does not work at cross purposes to monetary policy,” they added.
The global lender predicted that the UK’s new measures would “likely increase inequality” rather than achieving the government’s aim of creating a prosperous Britain.
It urged the British chancellor to change tack when he gives a statement on 23 November, a promise he made earlier this week in a bid to calm the markets.
“The 23 November budget will present an early opportunity for the UK government to consider ways to provide support that is more targeted and reevaluate the tax measures, especially those that benefit high-income earners,” the IMF said.
Commentators noted that the IMF’s wording closely resembled warnings it typically gives to emerging economies in the throes of a current account crisis. It comes after Larry Summers, a former US treasury secretary, accused Britain of “behaving a bit like an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market”.
Labour said the IMF’s statement showed the dangers of Ms Truss’s and Mr Kwarteng’s economic policies.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “This statement from the IMF shows the seriousness of the situation.
“Families will be concerned about what market movements in recent days mean for them.
“The government must urgently lay out how it will fix the problems it created through its reckless decisions to waste money in an untargeted cut in the top rate of tax.
“Waiting until November is not an option. The government must urgently review the plans made in their fiscal statement last week.
“First the Bank of England had to step in to reassure markets. Now, this statement from the IMF should set alarm bells ringing in government and make it clear that they need to act now.”
In response to the IMF’s rebuke, a UK Treasury spokesperson said: “We have acted at speed to protect households and businesses through this winter and the next, following the unprecedented energy price rise caused by [Vladimir] Putin’s illegal actions in Ukraine.”
They insisted ministers were “focused on growing the economy to raise living standards for everyone”, and promised that the chancellor would set out measures in November to ensure that debt falls as a share of GPD “in the medium term”.
Mr Kwarteng continues to deny that he has committed “economic vandalism” as his opponents have alleged. Instead, he told investors on Tuesday that he would boost growth through deregulation.
“We are confident in our long-term strategy to drive economic growth through tax cuts and supply-side reform,” he said.
It is not just opposition parties that have condemned the new government’s actions. Many backbench Tory MPs are said to be deeply concerned about the sliding of the pound, which has brought Labour its biggest lead over the Conservatives for two decades.
Mel Stride, a Sunak ally who chairs the Commons Treasury Committee, said his party’s strategy put it “in jeopardy”.
Meanwhile, Sir Charlie Bean, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, told Sky News that the Bank should hike interest rates immediately to reassure the markets.
“The thing about credulity is when you lose it, it can be quite difficult to get it back,” he said. “It takes time.”
The departure of Britain’s shortest serving prime minister and a possible comeback by her predecessor has created further divisions and infighting in the chaotic Conservative party
The plunging pound had not done it. The wholesale dumping of a budget did not do it. A complete collapse in party discipline that led to MPs cursing colleagues and others sobbing did not do it. Even the resignation of Liz Truss, making her Britain’s shortest serving prime minister by some distance, was not enough.
Yet as allies of Boris Johnson immediately let it be known that he was planning to stand for party leader again, just minutes after Truss had retreated into Downing Street at the end of her humiliating resignation speech, a Tory MP with long-lasting doubts about the party’s direction said they were now finally contemplating their future within it.
“If Boris wins, all bets are off,” they said. “Defections, people resigning the whip. It’s all on the table now. I’m starting to realise that I have so little in common with a large number of colleagues.”
In the crisis-ridden psychodrama that British politics has become, perhaps the prospect of Johnson’s return should have been the obvious next step after Truss’s devastating demise.
But several MPs said that it would simply lead to splits and the collapse of the government and the Conservative party – and could even be the one thing that could precipitate a general election that would be, in all likelihood, devastating for the Tories.
According to one cabinet member, the lobbying campaign for Johnson was “very quick and very aggressive”. Senior figures were contacted with the view of having as many public supporters as possible early on in the race, to convince waverers that it was now plausible to think the unthinkable and bring back a leader ditched just months earlier for being incapable of avoiding scandal and crises.
Every tactic was used to get an early bump in support that would create a sense of momentum. “Possibles” were told that Johnson was prepared to bring back key figures into a cabinet such as old foes Michael Gove and leadership rival Rishi Sunak.
Things would be different, with new staff and a new culture in No 10. The campaign was also from the ground up. Johnson already had a built-in advantage among members because of the drive that had been spearheaded by Tory donor Peter Cruddas since Johnson’s removal in the summer.
Cruddas had mounted a campaign to have Johnson reinstated or allowed to run again – and with it developed a network of passionate members fighting for the former prime minister.
Some MPs have reported that has led to lobbying at a local level for them to “back Boris”. Reports have also emerged that deselection is being dangled should they fail to comply.
The early shock and awe attempt was an essential element of making the Johnson saga once again the central question to the future of the Conservative party and the country.
By Friday morning, it was serving its purpose. Yet such has been the dizzying ebb and flow of the race to replace Truss that by the time Johnson was boarding a flight home from the Dominican Republic – with the boos from some passengers an early reminder of the divisions he will bring with him – there were concerns among his supporters that the momentum was ebbing.
By Friday afternoon, he was stuck on the halfway line, with about 50 MP backers. Allies were telling him it was the wrong time to attempt a comeback. Sources familiar with the Commons privileges committee into whether he misled MPs over Partygate were saying the investigation could well “finish him off”.
By the time his delayed flight hit the Gatwick tarmac shortly after 10am on Saturday morning, Johnson was fighting to keep alive the dream of a swift and jaw-dropping return.
But with Johnson scrambling, Sunak – planning his campaign from his rural North Yorkshire constituency – was already sure he had the support of the 100 MPs needed to enter the race.
The third figure in the running, Penny Mordaunt, was also struggling. Her backers knew, however, that her fate was tied up with Johnson’s – she had the capacity to keep him out of the race with enough supporters. Yet should Johnson drop out, she could inherit the anti-Sunak mantle that had helped deliver victory for Truss just weeks earlier. And all the while, the Tory melodrama continued to drive the fate of the country.
With the breathless speed with which the race to find a new Tory leader has unfolded, it can be easy to forget that halfway through the week, Britain lost its latest prime minister in record time. The fall of Truss came so fast that even 24 hours before her robotic resignation statement on Thursday, many MPs and insiders had been working on the basis that they had a couple of weeks left to ensure that the succession could be sorted out. While Truss and her team had been dreading prime minister’s questions, she managed to get through without an implosion. It was not a good outing – she had undermined chancellor Jeremy Hunt by committing to protect the pensions triple lock and bizarrely quoted Peter Mandelson by saying she was “a fighter, not a quitter” (Mandelson twice had to resign from the government). However, given how low expectations had fallen, the session had not caused a terminal problem.
As late as Wednesday afternoon, you could still find MPs who thought Truss was finished, but could even last as long as May’s local elections. Others were talking about Christmas, while the hawkish were aiming to get the medium-term fiscal plan out of the way on 31 October.
Ministers were shocked by the resignation of Braverman, with one cabinet source instantly pointing to it as “the beginning of the end”. The appointment of Grant Shapps in her place, a man who had been logging sentiment against the prime minister days earlier, was a symbol that Truss was no longer in charge of cabinet appointments, let alone the government. Yet still there were some saying she could be kept in place until a more convenient time.
It was, in the end, the botched handling of a Labour vote on fracking that pushed many MPs over the edge. Labour officials could scarcely believe their luck when a message emerged from the Tory deputy whip Craig Whittaker that their motion was being treated as a confidence vote in the government.
Throughout the day, Tory MPs facing huge local pressure over fracking began making it clear they would happily lose the party whip rather than back the government on the issue.
The peak of the chaos is hard to fathom, but it was probably witnessed in the House of Commons voting lobbies at about 7pm on Wednesday. As the fracking debate came to an end and climate minister Graham Stuart said that the vote was no longer being regarded as a confidence motion, chief whip Wendy Morton was seen leaving. Moments later, with MPs confused over what on earth they were meant to be doing, there were confrontations and reports of skirmishes. When one MP asked Morton how they were meant to vote, several witnesses said she replied: “I don’t know. I’m no longer the chief whip.”
An MP who saw the exchange said: “It was total chaos.” A former cabinet minister watching the scene said: “They can’t liaise with ministers – they can’t run things. This has to end. The party is being humiliated but, more importantly, so is the country.”
Back in the lobbies, some Tory MPs were brought to tears, being consoled by Labour MPs. Stuart was informed his closing speech had “finished off” the chief whip. Meanwhile, Whittaker, who had the task of getting MPs into line, was heard making the outburst: “I am fucking furious and I don’t give a fuck any more.” The phrase was reported around the world as a sign of the apparent state of the British government.
As the pressure increased, other MPs said Truss was seen racing after Morton, losing her security detail in the process. It culminated in a 45-minute meeting in the Tory whips’ office. Eventually, the two whips had unresigned, with a 1.30am briefing from Downing Street that MPs would be disciplined for failing to back the government in the vote. As one veteran from the Brexit wars era noted: “They’re making Theresa May look like Winston fucking Churchill.”
In the middle of it all, there was also a hidden war going on among Downing Street officials, seemingly without Truss being able to control it. A blame game was taking place over a briefing against Sajid Javid the previous weekend, with a quote from a Downing Street source dismissing the idea that Javid had been offered the job as chancellor, adding that the prime minister thought he was “shit”.
On Sunday, Truss had repeatedly tried to contact Javid to apologise for the briefing. When the pair finally spoke, Javid is said to have insisted that the perpetrator was fired. Truss said that she could not do that. However, on Wednesday, as prime minister’s questions began and Javid was scheduled to ask a hostile question about the briefing and destabilise Truss yet further, it was announced that senior aide Jason Stein had been suspended over the issue and was being investigated.
This announcement was made, said insiders, without Truss’s knowledge, by another Downing Street aide. Discipline had not only been lost within the party. It had disintegrated in the rooms surrounding Truss’s Downing Street office. Stein was reinstated later in the week.
While a botched party management might seem an obscure reason to ditch a prime minister, to many wavering MPs it was a sign that Truss’s status as the least powerful figure in her own government had made the whole enterprise of governing unsustainable.
Many had previously disregarded the idea of sending a letter of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee. In theory, Truss was protected from a confidence vote in her leadership for a year. But now, many decided Brady needed the ammunition of letters in his inbox.
This mayhem all unfolded after Hunt had already held a televised address on Monday effectively killing off the mini-budget that had triggered Britain’s economic turmoil – and with it, he finished off Truss’s leadership pitch and any reason she had to continue.
Later that day, some MPs thought Truss had decided to resign when Commons leader Mordaunt filled in for her at the dispatch box. In fact, Mordaunt would only ensure Truss had no way back by insisting the prime minister was “not under a desk”. When Truss did appear alongside Hunt later, she had a fixed, trance-like stare.
Part of the unfathomable absurdity that has unfolded since Truss’s resignation is the way in which the next prime minister will be decided. While there was no agreement on who should take over, the majority of Tory MPs had been in agreement since their party conference that any process to replace Truss must not be put to the members. In the atmosphere of crisis and with the markets watching, they needed someone who could command the support of most MPs.
Yet somehow, to the consternation of many MPs, a process emerged that would see the two final candidates put to a vote of members. The system appears to have developed as a compromise between those wanting a Johnson return and those opposed to it. Many MPs had pressured Brady to ensure that any candidate would need a high threshold of 100 MP backers to make it into the race. This was the “stop Boris” measure.
Meanwhile, MPs point to Conservative party chairman Jake Berry, one of the earliest Johnson backers from the 2016 leadership contest, as the person who pushed for a members’ vote – the former prime minister retains some star billing with the grassroots. The prospect that the contest could once again be decided by party members has led many MPs to conclude the rules now need changing. “The members’ vote doesn’t work,” one said. “It was brought in to include members, but it just lets a load of loons in.” Even if Sunak has a huge lead over Johnson after a final vote of MPs, members would still have the power to foist Johnson upon them.
With the race set up under these rules, Johnson’s team knew the key was somehow reaching the 100 MP threshold. They knew they had to move early and began pressing MPs immediately, including cabinet ministers who might be won over and bring some people with them. Johnson backers were making clear that they understood it would have to be a “very different sort of government”. Johnson himself is said to have been phoning colleagues from his Caribbean holiday – an irony not lost on incredulous MPs opposed to his return.
By Friday, MPs who just months earlier had set out detailed reasons for wanting Johnson out were among those demanding his return.
Stoke-on-Trent North MP Jonathan Gullis, a passionate Johnson backer who then joined the mass resignations three months ago, declared once again that he was supporting him. In his July resignation letter, he said the party had been “more focused on dealing with our reputational damage rather than delivering for the people of this country”.
Sleaford and North Hykeham MP Caroline Johnson also backed Johnson. She had previously resigned as vice chair of the Conservative party, citing the “cumulative effect” of Johnson’s “errors of judgment and domestic actions”.
One senior official from the Johnson years was among those to despair of the spectacle. “They’re clowns,” they said. “And can’t complain if the same shit happens again.”
Meanwhile, some MPs were heading in the other direction. One “red wall” MP who had backed Johnson said his re-emergence was madness, adding: “This should be all about good government and getting barnacles off the boat. We just booted him out because of the shit he caused. Do we seriously expect good governance from him?”
The absurdity of the situation, several Tory MPs warned, was that the return of Johnson is the one thing that could precipitate a general election – the least favoured option by Conservatives, given the party’s poll ratings. One said an election would be accompanied by “the end of the Conservative party”.
As amazing as it sounds, there were no active conversations between Labour and potential Tory defectors by the time Truss resigned. Yet this weekend, some Tories are considering their positions in the party for the first time, saying they could not tolerate life with Johnson as their leader once again. Some are still simply trying to digest exactly what is happening.
“I feel like I’ve been walking around for the last three months on crazy pills,” said one MP. “Lately, I’ve just been going up to people shouting: ‘Do something!’ Our standing isn’t holed below the waterline – it’s below the Mariana Trench. There are no metaphors left to describe what is going on.”
By Saturday morning, with the reality of the difficulties Johnson would face in office sinking in, some long-term backers were urging him not to stand. His former editor Charles Moore wrote that Johnson should “sit this one out”.
Another crucial moment will come on Monday, when the pro-Brexit European Research Group of MPs meets to discuss the leadership. Winning the support of the right is now essential for Johnson, but on its own it is unlikely to get him over the 100 MP threshold.
Meanwhile, Downing Street has become a ghostly building. It is still filled with staff, but the bad blood and the humiliation of Truss’s downfall is felt keenly by all who work there. This weekend, they are preparing their goodbyes and buying farewell gifts. They are preparing for one final prime minister’s questions, should Truss be required to complete that one last time on Wednesday. But one senior Downing Street figure described the atmosphere as “complete despair”.
Some of the staff are now contemplating the return of the man who they had been serving under just months earlier. Some could yet be called to give testimony against him in the privileges committee investigation.
The question they are now pondering is whether they will be giving evidence against their old boss, or their current one.
Touted as the favourite initially for the race to Downing Street, Rishi Sunak started losing his spark midway. Sunak had a huge advantage as he threw his hat early in the ring and was endorsed by four former chief whips, but within weeks, he started trailing behind the late-comer Liz Truss in the UK prime ministerial race.
Several surveys and polls conducted over the past six consistently showed Truss to be a much stronger contender than Sunak and remained the preferred choice among Tory members.
YouGov Conservative membership poll showed, Truss enjoyed a lead of 69% to Sunak’s 31% from 29 July- 2 August. And till 17 August, she stayed ahead of Sunak with 66% votes to his 34%.
“Those interested in polling and the recent past will note that we originally found Truss ahead of Sunak by 17 points (12 July) and that the gap then closed to seven points (17 July). YouGov had Truss ahead of Sunak by 24 points (13 July) with the gap then closing to 18 points (20 July) – on an unforced choice in both cases,” ConservativeHome survey showed as cited by ANI.
Why is Sunak lost the PM race against Truss?
Hours after Boris Johnson announced his resignation, Sunak threw his hat into the ring with a campaign video titled ‘Ready for Rishi’. Even though it gave him the initial advantage, the act was a thorough mark of trust deficit in his boss and mentor.
Moreover, even as he gained massive support from his party at first, he started losing them including Sajid Javid, Nadhim Zahawi and then, finally, Mordaunt. Several other MPs too switched sides. Meanwhile, Liz became stronger with her moves as the race progressed.
Apart from that, even though Sunak became popularity shot up immediately after Johnson’s resignation, his image to be a backstabber was never forgotten.
His tax policies and performance in the Treasury was given as a reason by 8%, while 7% cited a lack of trust and 5% saw him as out of touch, as per YouGov poll.
“Despite long having been talked of as a likely future Prime Minister, Sunak struggled to shed the parallel with the man who helped bring down Thatcher but failed in his own tilt at the top job – before coining the famous political cliche: “He who wields the knife never wears the crown,” The Guardian editorial wrote about him.
Why did Rishi Sunak suddenly become unpopular?
Rishi Sunak’s image was permanently tainted when a video of his came into foray where he accepted that he took money from deprived urban areas. His comments, boasting of shifting money from “deprived urban areas” to fund projects in the Kent commuter belt sparked outrage, considering it cut across the UK government’s rhetoric about ‘levelling up’ Britain and spreading wealth beyond the south-east.
Things turned worse when reports claimed that his wife Akshata is wealthier than British Queen Elizabeth II with assets worth £430 million, according to Sunday Times Rich List. In fact, they were mentioned to be Westminster’s first billionaire couple, probably enjoying the largest fortune of any House of Commons family. Their finances came under scrutiny as Labour party called him to be more transparent regarding loans he took to fund his businesses.
The Guardian reported, Rishi was forced to explain details about how he managed his family’s fortune, which is said to total £730million. His fortune’s are derived from his marriage to Akshata Murthy, who owns a 0.93% stake worth £690m in Infosys.
Further, the Independent newspaper claimed that Akshata, who is still an Indian national, had non-domiciled status in the UK and non liable to pay taxes in UK. In fact, her domicile status of helps her to save her around £20 million in taxes on dividends from her shares in Infosys.
More trouble came when reports suggested that Sunaks had retained their US Green Cards even after returning to Britain
Critics have also used expensive clothes and houses to portray him as out of touch with the ordinary public.
What is next for Rishi Sunak?
Hours after he lost the race, Sunak showed his support to Liz Truss. “It’s right we now unite behind the new PM, Liz Truss, as she steers the country through difficult times,” Sunak said on Twitter.
The ex-chancellor said he would continue to work as an MP, representing his constituency Richmond, Yorkshire, saying it was “a great privilege” to represent the people there. He said he would love to continue to represent the people of Richmond “as long as they’ll have me”.
Sunak, however, did not rule out the possibility of running for the post of leader of the Conservative Party in the future. “We’ve just finished this campaign. I’d say… I need to recover from this one,” he said.
However, more than the fact that who won or who lost, the race this time has been inspirational. Seeing someone like them in both origin and colour of skin, inevitably fuels hope within the community that is always striving to fight for its rights and against racism.
Sex abuse survivors, human slavery and torture victims are among at least 19 people who have been warned in recent days that they face being deported to Rwanda as the Home Office keeps faith with its “brutal” policy before a major legal challenge this week.
As signs mount that Priti Patel’s new plan for immigration is faltering, details have emerged of the next cohort of asylum seekers whom the home secretary wants to send on a deportation flight to Africa.
Information shared by charities indicates that six were trafficked or tortured, including one who was detained and beaten in a warehouse in the Libyan desert for eight weeks.
Not a single asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda nearly five months after the Patel’s policy was announced. A judicial review of its lawfulness will be heard in the high court this week.
Another central element of the immigration plan – the setting up of new processing centres for asylum seekers – also appears to have stalled after the Ministry of Defence admitted to the Observer that, despite evaluating 100 different sites for the Home Office since January, it has yet to publicly identify a new one that might be used.
The only site named so far as “asylum accommodation” – in Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire – was abandoned after the Home Office failed to move any asylum seekers there and the MoD withdrew from the plan.
Meanwhile, attempts by Patel – who, reports suggest, may be axed as home secretary – to control the number of small boat crossings are also failing, with record numbers arriving. More than 25,000 have arrived so far this year. Another 3,733 people crossed the Channel during the week to 28 August – twice as many for all of 2019.
The Observer can reveal that the government is considering reintroducing its notorious refugee pushback policy for use against small boats crossing the Channel.
Five months ago, after the heavily criticised policy was officially withdrawn by ministers, documents released under freedom of information laws suggest the government is reconsidering the tactic that has been blamed for drownings in Greece.
Sophie McCann, advocacy officer at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said: “It is shameful that the government ever considered carrying out potentially lethal ‘pushbacks’ against people seeking safety.”
Clare Moseley of the charity Care4Calais, one of the groups bringing this week’s legal action against the Rwanda plans, said: “The government’s brutal Rwanda policy targets people who have escaped from the worst horrors in this world. Given the more humane and effective options available, is this really what our country wants to do?”
Despite the legal challenge, the government plans to deport 19 people to Rwanda in the coming days. Details of 13 of these have been shared by Care4Calais after screening interviews of the asylum seekers: they include six who are married and two who have children.
Of those who shared details of torture in their preliminary questionnaire, one said they had been sexually abused in Iran and another that they had been “detained and threatened with execution if he didn’t comply with smugglers’ instructions” on the way to the UK.
A Sudanese person crossing Libya was detained for a month, “humiliated and made to work for no money”, said the charity. Of another, the charity said: “Smugglers were violent towards him throughout the journey in Turkey; [he was] kept for a week in a small room without food or water.”
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the policy was having a profound deleterious impact on the mental health of asylum seekers.
“Every day, through our work, we are witnessing the impact the threat of removal to Rwanda is having, especially on people’s anxiety and mental health, with worrying reports of young people who have been self-harming,” said Solomon.
MoD documents dated 31 August 2022, released under freedom of information laws, reveal that pushbacks and the results of trials into the tactic could form part of “future policy regarding the live issues surrounding the passage of small boats across the Channel”.
However, the MoD is refusing to release its assessment of the trials that were conducted off the coast of Weymouth, in Dorset, during the summer of 2021, raising questions over the actual findings along with issues of transparency.
During a defence committee hearing in July, the armed forces minister James Heappey admitted that Patel and Boris Johnson were persuaded of the merits of the dangerous tactic by its use in Greece, where it has been linked to a number of deaths.
“The prime minister, the home secretary and advisers around government had seen the successful employment of pushback tactics elsewhere, principally in Greece,” said Heappey.
McCann added: “MSF teams working there [Greece] have seen and heard the terrible harm that ‘pushback’ tactics have caused, including injury, trauma and people being left adrift at sea.
“It is therefore deeply alarming that, while it claims to have dropped the policy, this government seems to be leaving the door open to revive it in future.”
Responding to queries before the judicial review into the Rwanda policy, Patel said: “We expected legal challenges to this innovative plan.
“Those behind these legal challenges have regrettably delayed the implementation of our partnership and have thus far only succeeded in giving succour to the people smuggling gangs over the summer, resulting in more people boarding flimsy craft and putting their lives at risk in the Channel.
“Rwanda remains a safe and secure country with a strong track record of supporting asylum seekers. The sooner we can deliver this new policy, the sooner we can break the business model of the evil people smugglers and prevent further loss of life in the Channel.”
END OF THE ARTICLE
”Pushback is a term[1] that refers to “a set of state measures by which refugees and migrants are forced back over a border – generally immediately after they crossed it – without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility to apply for asylum”.[2] Pushbacks violate the prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens in Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and often violate the international law prohibition on non-refoulement.[2][1]”
