Rishi Sunak: Everything seems to be going wrong for the British Prime Minister

CNN

Life must look bleak for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak these days.

With only two weeks before the local elections which are likely to go badly for the ruling Conservative Party, there is a growing feeling that Sunak is a man to whom the epithet of being in power but not in power applies. .

Sunak said he would hold a general elections this year, but has not yet confirmed its date. The conventional wisdom is that he hangs on as long as possible to avoid a catastrophic loss that could plunge his party into a decade of political irrelevance. The assumption is that the longer he stays there, the greater his chances of overturning public opinion.

The problem for Sunak is that everything he does seems to backfire in one way or another.

Let's take an example from this week: its world's largest smoking banwhich, if approved by the upper house of Parliament, will form a key part of his political legacy.

It was only passed by MPs because it has the support of the opposition Labor Party. Members of his own cabinet, mostly those seen as eyeing his work, voted against the legislation. His two predecessors publicly ridiculed him. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a Canadian audience: Winston Churchill's party wants to ban [cigars]? Give me a break, as they say in Quebec. It's just crazy.

Liz Truss, who had spent the week throwing grenades at Sunak under the guise of promoting his new book, described the ban as virtue signaling legislation.

In total, almost half of Sunaks MPs did not vote in favor of the plan, a stunning display of division for the Conservatives, who once saw themselves as the natural party of government. Sunak's allies deny it, but the idea that he has any authority over his party, his government or his country is increasingly laughable.

He seems to have no luck. This week, for example, inflation fell and his flagship immigration policy moved a step closer to legislation. Instead of headlines touting these successes, the political agenda was dominated for days by the launch of Truss's book.

Some of the bad luck he creates himself. Last month, his party's vice-president left the Conservatives to join rival right-wing party Reform UK. Lee Anderson was a key ally for the Prime Minister, because he represents something that Sunak himself cannot.

Anderson is a working-class former miner from a part of the country that traditionally votes for the opposition Labor Party. Indeed, Anderson was a Labor politician. Brexit, among other things, pushed many of these traditional Labor voters to the right, leading many of them to support the Conservative Party in 2019.

Sunak, a multi-millionaire tech bro educated in the private sector, does not immediately appeal to these voters for obvious reasons. However, Anderson was suspended from the Conservative Party after making comments about the Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, which Sunak clearly considered unacceptable. Shortly afterwards, Anderson made a high-profile defection to a party that poses a major obstacle to the Conservatives performing well in the next election.

Of course, Sunak could have chosen not to appoint Anderson, who has a history of saying controversial things and embarrassing those around him, as party vice-president. But he did it and now the move seems ridiculous as Anderson publicly campaigns against his former boss on a daily basis.

Sunak has a habit of keeping people around him who could cause him pain. He had to sack his former interior minister, Suella Braverman, after she wrote a newspaper article criticizing the police without the prime minister's approval. Following his dismissal, Braverman accused Sunak of betrayal over migration policy.

Over time, Sunak has been so often outflanked on the right by members of his own party that he no longer has any authority among the most conservative voters. He is oddly considered a mild conservative compared to someone like Johnson, although his personal policies on many issues are well to the right of Johnson.

This may all seem a bit trite, but over time Sunak's authority has been greatly eroded. A former government official told CNN: Conservatives generally feel dead, there is nothing that can be done to save them. There is no going back and it shows in every little thing. Rishi seems unfriendly and a little weird and irritable.

It is difficult to dispute this analysis. The polls never seem to get better. Every positive point comes with a heavy caveat. Another example: next week, his controversial policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda while their applications are processed will likely finally be passed by parliament. The bill's most immediate impact, however, was an increase in the number of small boat crossings it is determined to stop, by 56% in the first three months of 2024, according to EU border agency Frontex.

EU officials privately attribute this to the fact that people know the bill is likely to pass and will make it harder to enter the UK. So they are rushing in now while they believe they still can. But the nuance will not be perceived by voters who want to see migration decrease. They will just see one A 56% increase and a new policy that doesn't have enough time to make a difference before the next election.

This is probably what the next six months will look like for Sunak. He will try to propose tax cuts which will not be enough for the right of his party. He will make promises on right-wing issues that will be derided as weak by people like Braverman and Truss.

Truss, of course, is probably best known for being the shortest prime minister in history. His legacy is forever linked to a comedy salad that a newspaper editor had bet that he would survive him (which is what happened). Even if she's openly laughing at you, things must be really bad.