The reasons for Johnson’s fall sound
vaguely familiar to Israeli ears.
Despite astounding electoral and, indeed, political successes, Johnson’s
personal failings led to a widespread belief that he was unfit for his office.
He blithely breached the Covid restrictions that his government had imposed on
the population at large, and was fined by the police for doing so. He misled parliament about that and related
matters, and finally he promoted to a position of importance a man he had been
told years before was a sex offender.
That proved the final straw. His
ministers started resigning en masse and he found himself unable to
continue governing.
And so Britain‘s arcane method for
moving forward in such a situation was brought into play. As is often pointed out, Britain does not
possess a written constitution, and the rules governing political crises have
evolved over time. The system that
brings a person to the position of UK prime minister, and thus head of the
government, bears no resemblance to US presidential elections. In the US system a candidate seeks a personal
mandate from the American people; in Britain 650 constituencies each elect a
member of parliament, and the leader of the largest party in parliament becomes
prime minister.
In short, it is the winning
political party that secures the nation’s mandate to govern, not its leader. So
if a leader is deposed, the party’s mandate to govern is not affected. That is why the Conservative party is
currently engaged in choosing a new leader who will automatically become
Britain’s next prime minister.
The party leadership devised a
two-stage process. In the first stage
the eight parliamentarians who secured enough support to stand as potential
candidates were whittled down by a series of elections to just two. Rishi Sunak, once Johnson‘s finance minister,
came out on top. Second was Liz Truss, his
foreign secretary.
The second stage involves the two
selected candidates putting their case to the membership of the Conservative
party, who will vote for their preferred choice in the period up to September
2. The exact number of Conservative party members is not precisely known, at
least by the general public, but it is in the region of 180,000. The winner – and thus Britain’s new prime
minister – will be announced on September 5.
There is, of course, a vociferous
body of opinion within the UK that finds it unacceptable for the nation’s next
prime minister to be selected by a handful of Conservative party members. But the process, or something akin to it, has
been used a fair number of times in recent years under both Conservative and
Labour administrations, and it does accord with the basic principles underlying
the British parliamentary system.
Although the nation as a whole will
have no say in the outcome, the fact that interviews of the candidates, and
debates between them, are being broadcast on radio and TV, and splashed all
over the print media, has turned the whole process into a national jamboree.
Would a
win by one or other of the candidates make a difference to UK-Israeli
relations? They have never been warmer
than they are right now, and both candidates are pledged to enhance them. The Conservative administrations of the past
twelve years, and their changing leaders, have been notably friendly toward
Israel, encouraging ever-closer collaboration.
On July 20 the UK trade minister launched negotiations between
the UK and Israel for a new, innovation-focused trade deal.
The groundwork for this was laid by Yair Lapid in his visit to the UK in November 2021. He and foreign secretary Liz Truss struck up a warm relationship right from the start. The close Israeli-UK understanding was demonstrated to the world on November 29 when the Daily Telegraph achieved a journalistic coup – an article written jointly by the British and Israeli foreign ministers, Liz Truss and Yair Lapid.
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Headed: “Together we can propel both our
nations to safety and prosperity”, the piece heralded a new UK-Israeli
agreement, to be signed later that day, which they described as “a major step
forward, transforming our close friendship into an even closer partnership by
formally agreeing a new strategic plan for the next decade spanning cyber,
tech, trade and defense.”
Liz Truss comes from a middle class
home – her father was a mathematics professor and her mother a nurse – and she
was educated in a state school. At
Oxford University she was president of the Liberal Democrats, but later joined
the Conservatives. Making slow but
steady progress up the political ladder, she won a parliamentary seat in
2010. Once in the House of Commons, her
abilities were quickly noticed, and she moved up the ministerial hierarchy from
2012 onwards, ending as Foreign Secretary in September 2021.
What
are Truss’s views about Israel and the UK Jewish community? In a recent article in the UK’s popular
on-line newspaper, Jewish News, she wrote: “Israel and the UK are
already closely intertwined with deep relationships in trade, security, culture
and tourism. If I am elected as the next Prime Minister I will set about
ensuring that alliance grows even closer.”
Asserting that Conservative values and Jewish values go hand in hand,
she said “the British Jewish community represents the best of our country and
as Prime Minister I will be your strongest champion… I will do everything in my
power to ensure that those spewing clear Jew hatred will be prosecuted quickly
within the full force of the law.”
Rishi Sunak is as
different an individual as it is almost possible to be. Born to Indian immigrants from East Arica, he
is an observant Hindu and, if elected, would become Britain’s first prime
minister of colour. His parents ran a
pharmacy, and from there they managed to send their son to the prestigious
Winchester College and on to Oxford University.
In 2009, Sunak married Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Indian
billionaire Narayana Murthy. He met her while studying at Stanford University in
the US. The couple are multi-millionaires.
Sunak was elected to
the House of Commons in 2015. He held a junior ministerial
post under then-prime minister Theresa May, and when Boris Johnson
succeeded her, he became a senior treasury minister. The early resignation of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer propelled him unexpectedly into that post, and he won many
plaudits for the support measures he introduced to ease the financial burdens
imposed on the population by the Covid restrictions.
In March Sunak met with Israeli finance minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to discuss the ambitious UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement. He took the opportunity to offer condolences over the Bnei Brak shootings the previous night. “I assured him,” Sunak tweeted, “that the UK stands with the people of Israel against terrorism.”
The
only reference in his piece to Israel is positive, but oblique. He writes: “The Jewish community is right to
call out those who seek to damage the only Jewish state in the world.”
Meanwhile
Brits the world over are agog at the spectacle of two senior figures in the parliamentary
Conservative party slogging it out on national media as they struggle for the
votes of the membership. So far polling
has shown a marked preference among them for Liz Truss, but some commentators
are certain that Sunak is closing the gap and is certain to emerge the
winner. For the Brits in Israel, the
exercise makes for a diverting distraction before the hard slog of their own
elections in November.
This article appears in the Jerusalem Post weekend magazine, 12 August 2022
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