The Tory leadership election was not an election in the democratic sense of the word. We are currently under the premiership of a leader who was elected by less than 0.3% of the population. Perhaps the unjust nature of the situation would be easier to overlook if this were not the third Tory Prime Minister in a row who entered office without the support of the general population.
The phrase ‘new normal’ entered its cultural vernacular in the aftermath of Covid-19, but it can also be applied to our current political landscape. The ‘new normal’ for the Conservative party is to be in government at the behest of its own membership, of which 44% are over 65 and 97% are white. This cannot be allowed to become Britain’s ‘new normal’. As well as having to contend with a country on the brink of recession, Truss will have to contend with the fact her government has been illegitimate from the start.
The Continuity Candidate?
The leadership election has been conducted under the Tories’ shapeshifting agenda. The Conservatives are a party of self-invention. They have been in government for 12 years, in which 4 different leaders have served as PM, and at no point have they accepted culpability for the present state of Britain. Each PM blames the previous cabinet for the chaos and vows that they are different, oblivious to the fact that an aggressive austerity policy and an ideologically-driven Brexit are at the root of our current economic woes.
But Truss is different. Paradoxically one of the challenges she will face is the fact her approach does not follow Conservative precedent. The Conservatism that has dominated the past decade is primarily concerned with its own survival which requires a complete severance from the previous cabinet.
However, it appears that Truss did not get the memo. Truss ran on her affiliation with Boris Johnson, which enabled her to paint Rishi Sunak as disloyal. Blind loyalty may have won over the far right of the Conservative membership base, but in a Britain reeling from Johnson’s mendacious lies and apathetic solutions this will not play well.
Until her win, one could argue that Truss’ emphasis on Johnson was an election tactic, but her statement that Johnson is ‘admired from Kyiv to Carlisle’ suggests otherwise. If Truss is going to succeed she must follow the Tory precedent of pretending her party has not been in government. Otherwise, just as Sunak was tarnished by his distance from Johnson, Truss will be brought down by her closeness to him.
The Next Election
On his podcast The Rest is Politics, Rory Stewart spoke about his experience working for Liz Truss as a Junior Minister in the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Stewart claims that Truss often repeated the same piece of advice to him: ‘don’t be interesting’.
In order for Truss to be successful, she should take her own advice because what Britain doesn’t need right now is another character politician. Boris Johnson worked harder on marketing his ‘lovable fool’ persona than on any actual policies.
Truss does not possess the charisma to cover her mistakes with bluster and she is not an articulate speaker, as evidenced by her acceptance speech where every ostensibly momentous line she delivered missed its mark. This speech is proof that Truss should abandon the theatrics because if she cannot even force an audience composed solely of Conservative party members to applaud then what hope does she have with the rest of the country?
Truss hinted in her acceptance speech that she is ruling out the possibility of an early election, declaring that she will lead the Tories to victory in 2024. But is this really feasible? Can Truss really last two years governing on a mandate that not only was built on lies but is not her own? Instead of naively dismissing an election, Truss should start preparing for one because from Labour’s perspective she is a far easier candidate to beat at the polls than Sunak.
What Truss must understand is that the Conservative mandate is not hers to wield just like it was not Johnson’s. In order to repair the insurmountable damage Johnson has done to our political system Truss must acknowledge that she is a Prime Minister, not a President.
However, given the lack of support for Truss amongst the general population and her own MPs it does not seem likely that she will retain the title for long. Truss, like Johnson is gaffe-prone. However, unlike Johnson she has not turned these comic moments to her advantage. Johnson could get stuck in the middle of a zip wire, yet still appear like he was in on the joke whereas with Truss it is markedly clear that she does not understand why everyone is laughing.