Yesterday’s speech by UK prime minister Rishi Sunak to the Conservative party conference in Manchester contained several talking points carefully crafted to appeal to the Tory faithful. Whether that will be enough to keep his fractious party in line, at least until after next year’s general election, remains to be seen.
Confirming the abandonment of the HS2 high-speed rail line from Birmingham to Manchester, and defending the recent deferral of key deadlines in the UK’s plan to achieve net zero, Mr Sunak positioned himself squarely as a traditional fiscal conservative, while also playing to what, to judge by the tone of this year’s conference, is an increasingly climate-sceptical base.
He threw red meat to the right flank of the party by promising a crackdown on state benefits, bdeclaring it impossible to change sex and implying he would withdraw the UK from the European convention on Human Rights if necessary in order to proceed with the policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda. He also scrapped A-level exams, announced significant changes to the school curriculum and introduced a rolling ban on the sale of tobacco to young people, which will eventually make all tobacco sales illegal.
But the absence of any commitment to tax cuts from either Mr Sunak or chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt angered vocal supporters of his predecessor, Liz Truss. The fact they still see Ms Truss’s policies as viable after the chaos of her short-lived premiership last year offers some indication of the febrile mood - or detachment from reality - of some party members.
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Mr Sunak appears to inspire neither great affection nor great antipathy among his party, apart from a rump of Boris Johnson supporters who blame him for their hero’s fall. His technocratic manner does not lend itself to rousing orations and the crowd in yesterday’s hall was subdued. As his country’s first non-white prime minister, he has a strong story to tell, and he made a persuasive case for the UK as the world’s most successful multicultural democracy. That point is borne out by the line-up of potential candidates to replace him as Tory leader: Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch and Priti Patel are all women from immigrant backgrounds. They are all also all on the party’s right, from whence any future contender will almost certainly emerge.
His most audacious rhetorical ploy was to present himself as a reformer intent on undoing the harm wrought by 30 years of bad government. This seems unpersuasive from the leader of a party which has been in power for the last 13 years. But Mr Sunak must play the hand he has been dealt by his predecessors. To judge by his performance yesterday, it is not a particularly strong one, but he still does have the advantage of a substantial majority to defend.