Britain's voters warm to new leader rishi sunak — but not to his fractious party

LONDON — Rishi Sunak has been Britain’s prime minister for just over a month. In the tumultuous world of U.K. politics in 2022, that’s an achievement. Sunak, who took office a month ago

Friday, has steadied the nation after the unprecedentedly brief term of predecessor Liz Truss. Britain’s first prime minister of color, Sunak has stabilized the economy, reassured allies

from Washington to Kyiv and even soothed the European Union after years of sparring between Britain and the bloc. But Sunak’s challenges are just beginning. He is facing a slowing economy, a

cost-of-living crisis and a ruling Conservative Party that is fractious and increasingly unpopular after 12 years in power. PARTIAL POPULARITY Opinion polls have good and bad news for

Sunak. The public likes the 42-year-old former investment banker, but his party is another matter. In a survey by pollster Ipsos, 47% of respondents said they liked the prime minister, while

41% disliked him. “That’s definitely better than Boris Johnson was getting earlier this year,” said Gideon Skinner, Ipsos’ head of political research. But Sunak’s popularity “is not showing

signs of rubbing off onto the Conservative Party brand,” he said. In the same survey, the Conservative Party was liked by just 26% and disliked by 62% — the worst figures for the party,

known as the Tories, in 15 years. The Ipsos phone survey of 1,004 adults is considered accurate within plus or minus 4 percentage points. Many voters welcome Sunak as a change from Truss and

her predecessor, Johnson, who quit in July after three scandal-plagued years in office. But the party has been in power since 2010, making it hard for Conservatives to avoid blame for the

country’s financial woes. Lingering allegations of misconduct also are tarnishing its image. On Wednesday, Sunak appointed a senior lawyer to investigate allegations of bullying against his

deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab. It’s not impossible for the Conservatives to rebuild their popularity before the next election, by the end of 2024. But it won’t be easy. Polls suggest

that the opposition Labor Party would win handily. AILING ECONOMY At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunak, then Britain’s finance minister, gained popularity by spending billions to

support shuttered businesses and pay the salaries of furloughed workers. Now he has to deliver bitter medicine. Britain’s economy is being weighed down by the pandemic, by Brexit and

especially by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has driven global energy prices sky-high. Millions of Britons have seen energy bills soar, though a government-imposed cap has prevented

even higher prices. Pandemic-related backlogs and staff shortages have caused record waiting times for care in the National Health Service. The situation was made worse by Truss’ ill-advised

September package of unfunded tax cuts, which torpedoed Britain’s reputation for economic prudence, weakened the pound to a historic low, drove up the cost of borrowing and triggered

emergency central bank intervention. Truss resigned last month after less than two months on the job. “I fully appreciate how hard things are,” Sunak said Oct. 25 in his first address to the

nation as prime minister, warning of “difficult decisions to come.” An emergency budget last week helped buoy the pound and calm markets — at the cost of $30 billion in tax hikes and the

prospect of public spending cuts down the road. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast this week that the U.K. economy will shrink by 0.4% in 2023 and grow by

just 0.2% in 2024 — the worst outlook among Group of 7 countries. WAR IN EUROPE Johnson’s departure from 10 Downing St. caused concern in Ukraine, where his staunch support for its

resistance to the Russian invasion won gratitude and respect. Britain has given Ukraine $2.8 billion in military aid since the start of the war, more than any country except the United

States, and has lobbied allies to do more to help Kyiv. Sunak traveled to Kyiv this month to reassure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Britain’s policy would not change under his

leadership. “I am proud of how the U.K. stood with you from the very beginning,” Sunak told Zelensky. “And I am here today to say the United Kingdom will continue to stand with Ukraine.”

London is keeping up its flow of support, announcing in the last week that it would deliver antiaircraft guns, anti-drone technology and three Sea King helicopters to Ukraine. But though

support for Ukraine is secure, defense spending could face a squeeze. Sunak has dropped a commitment made by Truss to increase defense spending to 3% of gross domestic product by 2030.

BREXIT HEADACHES Britain’s relations with its closest neighbors and biggest trading partners have been tense since it left the European Union in 2020. Johnson and Truss both seemed to

delight in riling the bloc to placate the powerful “Euroskeptic” wing of the Conservative Party. Sunak has been more emollient, making warm calls to European leaders in the days after taking

office. Achieving concrete change is more difficult, given the power that ardent Brexiteers hold within the Conservative Party. Britain’s departure from the EU brought customs checks and

other barriers for businesses trading with the bloc, sparked a political crisis in Northern Ireland and ended the free flow of EU nationals into Britain to fill vacant jobs. Britain could

ease trade friction if it agreed to align with EU rules in some areas, such as veterinary or food standards. But after reports that the government was seeking closer ties riled Euroskeptics,

Sunak said recently that he would not accept “alignment with EU laws.” David Henig, a trade expert at the European Center for International Political Economy, said that backlash “has

revealed just how deep the Europe problem is for Rishi Sunak and for the Conservative Party.” He said Sunak is a longtime Brexit supporter but also a pragmatist who “just wants a

relationship that works — and it quite clearly doesn’t at the moment.” “I think the problem is that he has no great fresh ideas as to how to make that work, and a lot of internal

opposition,” Henig added. MORE TO READ