-Anjani Priya Tammana
On her 45th day in office, Liz Truss resigned as the prime minister of the United Kingdom, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in the country’s history. Soon after, Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, announced that only one nomination for the post was made and history was made once more as Rishi Sunak became the first ever person of colour to be prime minister of the United Kingdom. When the news spread, Indians across the world rejoiced, elated that one of their people held such a high position of power in the country.
Rishi Sunak had contested for the position of prime minister during the July-September conservative party leadership election, but lost the members’ vote to Liz Truss. A series of economic misfortunes soon led to Truss resigning, with her claiming that she couldn’t “deliver the mandate on which [she] was elected by the Conservative Party”. As a result, elections were held once more and being the only one nominated, Rishi Sunak became the new prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Sunak became the Prime minister at a time of crisis, with the UK facing economic crises on one hand and the Russia-Ukraine war continuing to destabilize the continent as a whole on the other. Truss resigned from her post asking Sunak to be “bold” in his actions for the betterment of the country. Rishi Sunak certainly said he’d do so, promising “economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda”. Soon after attaining the position, Sunak abolished the ban on fracking, reversing his predecessor’s decision. He also launched the Forest and Climate Leadership Partnership (FCLP) at the COP 27 summit along with 26 other countries from the European union. The partnership aims to provide a space for governments to create collective consensus about how to drive progress towards the 2030 target to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation. With countries which account for 60% of the world’s GDP and 33% of the world’s forests, this goal isn’t too out of reach.
But like anything else, this coin has two sides too. Despite people rejoicing that an Indian man is in the office, Rishi Sunak has lived in the UK his whole life and was born into a privileged family, and even married a woman in line to inherit billions. As someone who no doubt lived a life of privilege, he may not be as “one with the people” as some like to imagine. Sunak has also stated that he plans to make changes to UK’s Equality Act, an act that protects the rights and dignities of trans people in the country. He vowed to put an end to the “woke nonsense” and sources report that he plans to “make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.”
Rishi Sunak pledged to “take action to protect the lives and livelihood of the British public” by working on new tough laws to protect people from disruption. He has held the office for less than two months, and there simply isn’t information to determine how he’ll perform. Only time will tell what the future holds. For the sake of the world, let’s hope it’s all uphill from here.
The Echo 