With both his flagship policies in question, Rishi Sunak faces a credibility challenge as he begins his election campaign.
Rishi Sunak has had to set aside his flagship policy on deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda and banning smoking for young people until the general election. The backtrack has given Labour a window to criticize the government’s legislative program with many proposed laws now up in the air. The Prime Minister confessed that people would not be deported to Rwanda until he was re-elected. However, he promised that the plan would take place if he was re-elected.
Background
Critics argue that the decision to shelve the program evidences Sunak’s waning confidence in the initiative and that he knew it would not work. In addition to the Rwanda plan, another key legislative policy that Sunak had promised was to make it illegal for young people to buy tobacco. However, the bill was not included in the final round of bills being “rushed through” parliament before it was prorogued and Sunak voiced his disappointment that the bill would not see the light of day until the elections.
Sunak’s admission that the Rwanda policy would not be implemented unless he is re-elected led to much criticism within the party. The plan devised under Boris Johnson two years back was important to many right-wing Tories who argue that Sunak should ensure that a plane landed in East Africa before the election. Now, it will be more challenging to defend the plan since it would not have had a chance to be put into practice.
The Rwanda plan has been a flagship policy of Sunak since he became Prime Minister in October 2022. He has vouched for the plan even after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the plan was unlawful on the basis that Rwanda was not a safe destination country. Sunak went on to sign a fresh treaty with the East African country and passed a new law to go around the ruling. However, further potential legal blocks remain on the horizon.
Another hurdle the plan faced was the European Court of Human Rights, which prevented the last deportation flight to Rwanda in 2022 and the government could be concerned that it will attempt to stop flights again.
Analysis
Immigration is set to be a major issue in the election campaign. The decision to call the vote months earlier than planned was a controversial one. The Rwanda bill may never see the light of day if the Labour Party wins. The Labour Party has promised to scrap the bill if it does come to power. The plan has also come under flak from the Liberal Democrats who refer to it as an “immoral and expensive disaster”.
Although the bill was not passed before Parliament shut down, Sunak has continued to champion the plan arguing that it will deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats. He wants to make delivering the plan a key selling point for voters.
The smoking bill would raise the minimum age to buy cigarettes, making it more difficult for younger people to smoke. The controversial smoking law has faced backlash from Tory MPs on the grounds that it undermines personal choice. 58 of them, including some of Sunak’s ministers, voted against it in a free vote. Mr Sunak has remained keen on the plan, highlighting it in his speech when he announced the election, indicating it would be included in the Tory election manifesto. The bill would have made the UK the first country in the world to ban adults from buying tobacco. It was a part of Sunak’s political legacy rather than a Tory policy.
The onset of the elections threw a curveball for Sunak as he suffered a disastrous first day of campaigning. The prime minister began the day by admitting that the deportation flight would not go ahead before the election, prompting many senior figures to declare the policy “dead”. Additionally, five more Conservative MPs exited the party, declaring that they would not seek reelection. The problems were magnified when the first poll after the election announcement showed that Tory support had diminished while Labour’s lead had widened.
Assessment
- With both Rishi Sunak’s flagship laws on the back burner, he faces a credibility challenge. Many interpret his decision to shelve the Rwanda bill as revealing his doubts about the policy and point to his calling an early election as a way to avoid the plan being tested out.
- While the smoking law may have been a unique initiative that helped Sunak differentiate himself from others, the bill seeking to prevent young people from smoking will not pass before the general election. This could affect voter confidence in Sunak as he appears to sideline his landmark bill under party pressure.
