Senior Tories are warning Rishi Sunak that he is enjoying the “calm before the storm”, with his own MPs already planning to take him on over immigration and a beleaguered plan to secure “Brexit freedoms”.
The Prime Minister spent Saturday trying to show his commitment to easing the crisis in the NHS, one of five promises he made in his New Year’s speech, by holding a health services data summit. Delays in discharging people from hospital, social care shortages, an A&E crisis and waiting lists were discussed at the ‘NHS recovery forum’. Sunak told attendees that it would take “boldness and radicalism” to resolve the pressures.
He has also invited unions to talks with government departments on Monday over next year’s pay deals as he battles to end NHS, rail and postal strikes that have been the biggest wave of industrial action in decades .
However, as his team tries to restore a relative political calm, the right of his party is publicly warning the Prime Minister that his authority rests on a promise to scrap most EU-derived laws by the end of the year, a plan that is expected to be blocked in the House of Lords. Other Tories are already preparing to change promised new laws to tackle the problem of small boats crossing the Channel, with some planning to turn to the influence of the European court of human rights.
Close allies of former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are among those already agitating over Sunak’s leadership, with some warning privately that he must show significant progress before the spring to avoid a new outbreak of war internal that shook the Conservatives last year.
Sunak’s allies said he would now spend much of next year trying to erase the memory of the “perma-crisis” in the party. However, several Tories already believe the key issues of small boats and Brexit are likely to cause immediate problems ahead of local elections in May.
“Sunak has to take risks, but it is not in his nature and he has a risk-averse chancellor,” said a former cabinet minister. “You get to May and a bad election result, and then you seriously worry about their seats the ‘red wall’ of 2019. That’s when it all starts. It really is the calm before the storm at the moment.”
With Tory MPs increasingly concerned that support for the reform party will increase, right-wing figures are focusing on a promise to remove most EU laws from the statute books by the end of the year. There have been persistent rumors that the retained EU bill will be watered down, with officials warning that it is a time-consuming, unpredictable and potentially dangerous exercise.
Sunak spent Saturday trying to show his commitment to easing the NHS crisis, one of five promises made in his New Year speech. Photograph: Rory Arnold/No10 Downing Street
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary who championed the bill, told the Observer: “The voters’ mandate in 2019 was to ‘get Brexit’ and start reaping the rewards of independence. Leaving EU levels of over-regulation on our statute book does not do that, so it lets voters down.” David Jones, a former Brexit minister, warned Sunak that his authority “depends on it being completed successfully”. And he added that “the future of the conservative party” is at stake.
“In 2019 I was proud to stand on a manifesto to deliver Brexit and deliver its opportunities, based on the support of many thousands of working-class voters who had been hurt by Labour’s historic betrayal of Brexit,” he said . “We have to comply.”
Labor and the Conservatives will be running an election campaign at a time when many households are becoming poorer and a gap is opening between the highest and lowest earners, a dynamic that is likely to increase pressure on Keir Starmer and Sunak to raise taxes on them. benefiting
The rapid rise in interest rates means households with a mortgage will have seen their incomes fall by 12% over two years by the time of the next likely election date, while a further 5% wealthy households will actually see their income rise.
Despite predictions of falling inflation, new research into the cost of living, published on Monday by the Resolution Foundation think tank, shows the impact of a 0.25% rise in interest rates to January to 3.5% in December. It is currently expected to reach 4.6% by October 2023, ensuring many will be left facing a cost of living crisis as the election approaches. The average mortgage debtor household in this position faces an annual increase of £3,000 in their mortgage costs. Their typical income will fall by 12% between 2021-22 and 2023-24.
Much of the increase in savings and investment from higher interest rate incomes next year will be captured by the richest 5% of households, with their incomes set to rise by 4% this year and next , even while the rest of the country gets poorer. However, their assets, including their homes, may fall in value.