UK election ahead: Contradictions bedevil Conservatives' tenure in power

With the opposition Labour Party looking more energized under Keir Starmer than it has been since Tony Blair led it to a huge victory in 1997, there was more bad news to follow. Some 80 Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) announced they would not seek re-election. This meant the Conservatives were scrambling to line up candidates, while both Labour and the Liberal Democrats had their lists ready.

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When Sunak took over in October 2022 after the almost-Maoist political chaos under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, whose tenure lasted six weeks, he was praised by many for being the only adult in the unruly classroom that the Conservative Party had become. 

But, the larger challenges faced by the UK remain. Among them are a decline in public services, the need to allow more greenfield sites for housing—the lack of which makes London among the most unaffordable residential markets in the developed world—and revitalizing trade after the Tories took the calamitous decision to exit the EU.

An out-of-power Conservative party would be more at war with itself because its far-right wing will almost certainly (and incorrectly) blame a poll defeat on Sunak for not being hardline enough. As the late Tory leader Alan Clark observed in his history of the party, when the party is out of office, it “reverts, all too predictably, to cannibalism."

The party’s dilemma is that its definition of being Conservative is wrapped in a flag of hypernationalism, which led to Brexit, and a sense of Britain too tied up with its past, rather than making a case for liberalizing the economy. 

FT columnist Janan Ganesh outlined these contradictions: “A conservative believes in home ownership but not in building houses on greenfield sites; in trade but not in the supranational regulations that smooth it. In each of these intellectual conflicts, this government has tended to prioritise tradition. [These decisions were] made with no awareness of the cost to growth."

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The most glaring example is Brexit, of course, but also the Conservatives’ utterly hypocritical attitudes towards immigration. Pulling up the drawbridges to keep out Poles and other East Europeans from Britain underpinned the vote in favour of Brexit, even if the rhetoric was about sovereignty and illusory savings in the billions that could then be spent on the National Health Service. 

Last year, a parliamentary report outlined the trade picture since Brexit took effect. “Looking at longer term trends, the share of UK trade accounted for by the EU has fallen. Between 1999 and 2007, the EU accounted for 50-55% of UK exports. By 2022, this figure had fallen to 42%. The share of UK imports from the EU has also fallen since 1999, although by less than for exports."

While it is true that British exports to non-EU countries picked up in 2022, this was because of precious-metal exports to China, the UAE and Hong Kong. The irony that the country which defined and perverted colonial trade for two centuries saw an uptick in trade because of commodity exports is rich indeed. 

Former prime minister Theresa May’s first bilateral trip to New Delhi in November 2016, just months after taking over, to kick-start talks over a free trade agreement (FTA) with India always struck me as something out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel. Imagine walking out of the largest trade grouping in the world with your neighbours and then seeking a deal with a government that’s among the most unenthusiastic about free trade. It seemed akin to professing to be afraid of water and then leaping into a surging river.

Leaving Brexit and chasing individual-country FTAs is also myopic in a world of supply chain integration where global buyers seek efficiencies and adhere to just-in-time inventory. They balk at form filling and delays that bedevil countries outside FTAs. One only has to look at Bangladesh’s huge increase in garment exports and contrast this with India’s stagnation to understand that this applies even to supposedly less sophisticated exports. 

In this respect, we have more in common with our former colonial rulers than just cricket and Yes Minister. An inflated sense of our place on the global stage governs our respective world views. It is telling that Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have seen huge increases in trade with China, while trade with India has stagnated, as trade expert Amita Batra observes.

But the greatest contradiction in the UK’s Conservative reign of error has been its much-touted ‘hardline’ on immigration. Soon after the election announcement, the government said its plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda would be delayed yet again. 

Brexit has had little effect reducing immigration; it has just meant immigrants come in large numbers from all over to help a labour-short economy, not just Europe. This is more equitable and has certainly helped Indians, who account for the largest number of work visas granted in 2023, at 163,500, versus 46,200 for Zimbabweans.

As muddled as Conservative policies have been, this sleight-of-hand liberalization of immigration could prove to be its most enduring positive legacy. The Labour Party is more sensible on immigration. Helped by newcomers from its former colonies, post-Brexit Britain may get a shot in the arm.