Sunak and Yousaf haunted by predecessors

It must feel ever-so-depressingly like groundhog day for Rishi Sunak. This morning, the PM made his grand speech at London Tech Week – all psyched to talk about his favourite new topic, AI — and instead found himself once again answering questions about Boris Johnson. 

In the event Q&A, Sunak launched a scathing attack on his vengeful predecessor in a bid to bat away accusations that he had meddled with the former PM’s honours list to secretly block peerages for staunch Johnson allies Nadine Dorries, Alok Sharma and Nigel Adams. 

“When it comes to honours and Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do, because I didn’t think it was right,” Sunak said.

This request, according to Sunak, was to overrule the House of Lords appointments committee or to give Johnson a private assurance that if Dorries, Adams and Sharma were left off the list, they would get a peerage later.

“When I got this job, I said I was going to do things differently,” reasoned the PM, in an apparent attempt to draw a distinction between his own administration and the dishonest one run by his predecessor.

Johnson, who announced his resignation as MP on Friday, has since hit back at Sunak’s explanation, accusing him of “talking rubbish.” 

Meanwhile, the Privileges Committee, which is expected to deliver its verdict that Johnson deliberately misled parliament tomorrow, has rebuffed the ex-PM’s accusations of being a “kangaroo court”. It is even said to be considering accusing those questioning the panel’s impartiality of being in contempt of Parliament. 

The Tory party is once again in disarray. And the by-elections triggered by resignations from Dorries, Johnson and Adams will further destabilise Sunak’s government.

Whether Johnson will accept Nigel Farage’s bold invitation to form a new alliance remains to be seen. Most are sceptical that he would ever seriously join forces with the former UKIP and Brexit Party leader – or that two such big egos could ever successfully work together.

Either way, Johnson seems determined to wreak havoc on his own party in his quest for revenge. 

To make matters worse, developments in London’s mayoral elections could deal a fresh blow to Sunak’s administration. Much to the disbelief of many senior Tories, Conservative nominee Paul Scully – the frontrunner in the contest to take on Sadiq Khan – has failed to make the shortlist.

Some are interpreting this as more evidence of Number 10’s Johnson purge – after all, Scully refused to resign from Johnson’s government and, at the time, criticised those who did. Others say Scully was caught in the middle of the Sunak-Johnson rift since Team Boris didn’t like that he was serving in Sunak’s government.

Whatever the reason, Sunak will be disquieted that Scully’s allies are urging him to get his own back by resigning as an MP, triggering yet another destabilising by-election. 

All in all, it’s been an unfortunate day for the PM. Yet perhaps he can take slight comfort in the fact that his political party isn’t crumbling quite as dramatically as one north of the border. 

As Colin Wright notes in Reaction today, the SNP soap opera has intensified in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest yesterday. At present, the party’s leader, Humza Yousaf, is still resisting pressure, including from Ash Regan who came third in the recent SNP leadership contest, to suspend the former first minister while the police investigation into the party’s finances continues.

It seems Yousaf and Sunak share some common ground after all. Despite their best attempts to move their respective parties forward, both are haunted by the affairs of their troublesome predecessors. 

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