How will Sunak try to unite the party? With a tactic that Johnson and Truss did not use | Beth Rigby
But seven weeks ago, Rishi Sunak was cast on to the political scrapheap as he lost out to Liz Truss to become prime minister and retreated to his North Yorkshire constituency, his ambitions shattered and his hopes for political power now beyond his grasp.
But on Monday, Mr Sunak staged the most remarkable of political comebacks in modern times, as the 42-year-old politician won the latest leadership contest, after Penny Mordaunt dropped out and Boris Johnson decided not to stand.
He will soon become the country’s 57th prime minister after a series of plot-twists, feuds and cock-ups so preposterous that, at times, the Tory party looked like it had been commissioned to write the plot lines for the next Aaron Sorkin political drama box set, rather than running the country.
Rishi Sunak wins race to be prime minister – live updates
Beyond the drama over the past few months, his election has been remarkable in other ways too – he will be our first British Asian prime minister, our first Hindu prime minister, and our second-ever youngest prime minister.
His is a journey of near political annihilation to victory in a dizzyingly short period of time, as the mistakes of his rival changed his destiny too.
When I asked one of his supporters, Tory MP Stephen Hammond, whether he was – like me – rather “dazed and confused” by this discombobulating turn of events, he told me that he was “delighted”.
“We now have a prime minister who’s going to govern in the interests of the whole country,” he said.
“I think he’ll choose the best talents of the Conservative Party to make sure we do that. And it’ll be a competent, sensible government.”
For those who supported him, the Tory “experiment” of personality-driven populist leadership – Boris Johnson – and ideological zealotry – Liz Truss – is over.
Mr Sunak, they hope, will mark a return to sensible, solid leadership.
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Moment Rishi Sunak announced as next PM
In a short statement after he was appointed party leader and prime minister elect, Mr Sunak pledged to serve with “integrity and humility” – two traits critics of his predecessors said they lacked.
He also acknowledged the “profound economic challenge” faced by the country and said his priority was to bring about “stability and unity” after the most fractious of times.
That might be the hope, what is the reality?
Read more:
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First up, when Liz Truss was elected in September, MPs agreed that she was facing the toughest in-tray since the 1970s, with the energy bill crisis, spiralling inflation, a worsening cost of living crisis, and pressure on public services and public sector pay.
That in-tray has got harder still following Ms Truss’s handling of the economy, which has only served to further imperil government finances and push up interest rates, leaving the new PM and his chancellor with some very difficult decisions to take over tax and spend policies.
It was hard to see how Ms Truss was going to get cuts in public spending through parliament, be it from rowing back on defence spending to lifting benefits in line with inflation.
You saw last week that she was forced to recommit to lifting pensions in line with inflation after a backbench rebellion just two days after her chancellor refused to do so.
One figure familiar with Treasury thinking told me last week that the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, was staring at a black hole in the public finances so big – despite the £32bn of tax cut reversals carried out by junking the mini-budget – that austerity cuts this time around might have to be even bigger than those imposed by George Osborne after the financial crisis in the early part of the last decade.
The prime minister might have changed, but the in-tray is still very much there.
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Analysis: Challenges ahead for Sunak
The second big issue for Mr Sunak is whether the party, after all the bloodletting of recent months, can genuinely come back together or whether it is ungovernable.
The incoming PM has certainly made inroads into bringing the party together, picking up the support of voices on the right of the party – Suella Braverman, David Frost, Steve Baker, Sir Iain Duncan Smith – as well as those on the centre ground, such as Tom Tugendhat.
He’d totted up nearly 200 public nominations – well over half of the parliamentary party – before Ms Mordaunt withdrew from the race, as well as picking up senior Johnson supporters, from Priti Patel to James Cleverly.
His backers say this reflects a party that is prepared to come back together, but don’t forget that Mr Johnson did – and these figures were independently verified by the 1922 committee – garner support of 102 MPs.
A rump of those could be irreconcilable to a Sunak premiership, given that they blame him for ousting Mr Johnson in the first place.
If a block of 35 or so MPs consistently refuse to play ball, Mr Sunak will soon be hamstrung in trying to get policy through parliament.
As those MPs who backed him cheered on the steps of Conservative Campaign Headquarters on Monday afternoon, there were a number of others staying away from the action, nursing grievances that may not be easy to bury.
Rishi Sunak arrives at Conservative Party HQ in Westminster
A tweet from Nadine Dorries, Mr Johnson’s most ardent backer, when the former PM withdrew from the race, was ominous.
“Boris would have won members vote [and] already had a mandate from the people,” she wrote. “Rishi and Penny, despite requests from Boris refused to unite which would have made governing utterly impossible.
“Penny actually asked him to step aside for her. It will now be impossible to avoid a general election.”
How many more might feel the same?
‘Big tent cabinet’
One way Mr Sunak is expected to try to avoid schisms with different groups within the party is to create a big tent cabinet – something that Mr Johnson and Ms Truss did not do.
That has the effect of binding those with different views into the government, but also means the PM really will have to rule by cabinet government rather than trying to steamroller decisions through.
And the final controversy, picked up by Ms Dorries, is legitimacy.
Three prime ministers in three years – two of them in less than two months – raises the question about legitimacy and mandate.
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Mr Sunak might try to answer the latter by returning the principles of the 2019 manifesto upon which the Tory party was elected.
But what of legitimacy? The party is trailing 20+ points in the polls and have changed leader twice without putting it to the British public.
Labour will argue that he has no mandate to govern and might well – as it did on the matter of the fracking vote that ended up toppling Ms Truss – try to divide the Tory party with votes on wedge issues.
Mr Sunak could also find himself coming under heavy political fire over his personal wealth, his wife’s historic tax arrangements (she was a non-dom but has now changed that arrangement) and his partygate fine.
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Tories ‘can’t keep doling out PMs’, says Labour deputy
Labour might well try to paint him as another public school prime minister who is out of touch with ordinary people and their lives.
Mr Sunak, for his part, will argue that he wasn’t born into great wealth and instead had parents who made sacrifices for him to succeed.
But Labour believe this is a weak flank for Mr Sunak: this is a reason why party operatives thought Penny Mordaunt was a tougher opposition for Sir Keir Starmer.
What he has got going for him is that the bar has been set so low by his predecessor.
Ms Truss had to junk her entire policy platform, lost any authority within her parliamentary party and became the most unpopular leader since polling began in a matter of weeks.
Mr Sunak might conclude from that the only way is up. But even if he can somehow begin to repair and even reunite his party, can he convince the country to look at him and the Conservatives again?
World
‘It is truly monstrous’: Inside the besieged Sudanese city where families are forced to eat animal feed to live
Al Fashir is being suffocated to death.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has held the capital of North Darfur hostage in a 14-month siege – blocking food or fuel from entering the locality and forcing starvation on its 900,000 inhabitants.
The entire city is currently a militarised zone as Sudan‘s army and the Darfur Joint Protection Force fend off the RSF from capturing the last state capital in the Darfur region not currently under their control.
Rare footage sent to Sky News from inside al Fashir town shows streets emptied of cars and people.
The city’s remaining residents are hiding from daytime shelling inside their homes, and volunteers move through town on donkey carts distributing the little food they can find.
Al Fashir is the capital of North Darfur
‘It is truly monstrous’
Journalist Muammer Ibrahim sent Sky News voice notes from there.
“The situation is monstrous,” he says. “It is truly monstrous.
“The markets are emptied of food and partially destroyed by shelling. Civilians were killed at the market, just a day ago. People have fled market areas but there is also shelling in residential areas. Every day, you hear of 10 or 12 civilians killed in attacks.”
His voice sounds shallow, weakened by the dire conditions, and gunshots can be heard in the background.
“The intense fighting has meant that people cannot safely search for anything to eat, but there is also nothing for their money to buy. The markets are depleted. Hundreds of thousands here are threatened by a full-blown famine,” he says.
“There has been a full blockade of any nutritional supplies arriving in al Fashir since the collapse of Zamzam camp. It closed any routes for produce or supplies to enter.”
The city’s remaining residents hide from daytime shelling
The RSF ransacked the famine-ridden Zamzam displacement camp 7.5 miles (12km) south of al Fashir town in April, after the military reclaimed Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
The United Nations believes that at least 100 people were killed in the attacks, including children and aid workers.
The majority of Zamzam’s half a million residents fled to other areas for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them are now squeezed into tents on the edges of al Fashir, completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
The capture of the camp allowed the RSF to tighten their siege and block off the last remaining supply route. Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year.
Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year
“Already, between June and October 2024, we had several trucks stuck and prevented by the Rapid Support Forces from going to their destination which was al Fashir and Zamzam,” says Mathilde Simon, project coordinator at Medicins Sans Frontieres.
“They were prevented from doing so because they were taking food to those destinations.”
“There was another UN convoy that tried to reach al Fashir in the beginning of June. It could not, and five aid workers were killed.
“Since then, no convoy has been able to reach al Fashir. There have been ongoing negotiations to bring in food but they have not been successful until now.”
Mathilde Simon says malnutrition rates in al Fashir are ‘catastrophic’
Families are resorting to eating animal feed to survive.
Videos sent to Sky News by volunteers show extreme suffering and deprivation, with sickly children sitting on thin straw mats on the hard ground.
Community kitchens are their only source of survival, only able to offer small meals of sorghum porridge to hundreds of thousands of elderly men, women and children facing starvation.
The question now is whether famine has fully taken root in al Fashir after the collapse of Zamzam camp and intensified RSF siege.
‘Malnutrition rates are catastrophic’
“The lack of access has prevented us from carrying out further assessment that can help us have a better understanding of the situation, but already in December 2024 famine was confirmed by the IPC Famine Review Committee in five areas,” says Mathilde.
“It was already confirmed in August 2024 in Zamzam but had spread to other displacement camps including Abu Shouk and it was already projected in al Fashir.
“This was more than eight months ago and we know the situation has completely worsened and malnutrition rates are absolutely catastrophic.”
Fatma Yaqoub said her family have nothing to eat but animal feed
Treasurer of al Fashir’s Emergency Response Rooms, Mohamed al Doma, believes all signs point to a famine.
He had to walk for four hours to escape the city with his wife and two young children after living through a full year of the siege and offering support to residents as supplies and funding dwindled.
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“There is a famine of the first degree in al Fashir. All the basic necessities for life are not available,” he says.
“There is a lack of sustenance, a lack of nutrition and a lack of shelter. The fundamental conditions for human living are not living. There is nothing available in the markets – no food or work. There is no farming for subsistence. There is no aid entering al Fashir.”
“All of this points towards a full-blown famine.”
Hamas has said it is ready to cooperate with a request to deliver food to Israeli hostages in Gaza, if Israel agrees to permanently open a humanitarian corridor into the enclave.
The militant group’s statement comes amid international outcry over two videos it released of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, who it has held captive since 7 October 2023.
The now 24-year-old looks skeletal, with his shoulder blades protruding from his back.
The footage sparked huge criticism, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas labelling the videos “appalling” and saying they “expose the barbarity of Hamas”.
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Video released of Israeli hostage
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had asked the Red Cross to give humanitarian assistance to the hostages.
Hamas’s military spokesperson Abu Obeidah said it is “ready to engage positively and respond to any request from the Red Cross to bring food and medicine to enemy captives” if certain conditions are met.
These are that Israel must permanently open a humanitarian corridor and halt airstrikes during the distribution of aid, he said.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that six more people had died of starvation or malnutrition in the enclave in the past 24 hours.
This raises the number of those who have died from what multiple international agencies warn may be an unfolding famine to 175 since the war began, the ministry said. This includes 93 children, it added.
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Baby Zainab starved to death in Gaza
No aid entered Gaza between 2 March and 19 May due an Israeli blockade and deliveries of supplies including food, medicine and fuel have been limited since then.
Israeli authorities have previously said there is “no famine caused by Israel” – and that its military is “working to facilitate and ease the distribution of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip”.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health authorities also said at least 80 people in Gaza were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Sunday.
These included people trying to reach aid distribution, Palestinian medics said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has repeatedly said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians” and has previously blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.
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Hamas killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in its attack on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
We’ve seen this many times before.
Highly anticipated talks and meetings with America, Israel’s closest ally and the one country with the power to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course, then nothing changes.
We need to give Steve Witkoff time to report his assessments back to the White House before we can give a complete verdict on this visit but what we’ve seen and heard so far has offered little hope.
The pressure on Donald Trump to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is mounting after a small but vocal contingent of his base expressed outrage.
Even one of his biggest supporters in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green, has referred to it as a genocide.
It was little coincidence Mr Witkoff was dispatched to the region for the first time in three months to speak to people on both sides and “learn the truth” to quote US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who accompanied him to an aid site in Gaza.
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Gaza nurse: ‘We’re rationing care’
The pair spent five hours in Gaza speaking to people at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation centre and it’s understood saw nothing of the large crowd of Palestinians gathering a mile away waiting for food.
Their sanitised tour of Gaza did not include a visit to a hospital where medics are receiving casualties by the dozen from deadly incidents at aid sites, and where they’re treating children for malnutrition and hunger.
A critical trauma nurse at Nasser hospital told us a 13-year-old boy was among the people shot while Mr Witkoff was in the enclave.
An American paediatrician at the same hospital who had publicly extended an invitation to meet with Mr Witkoff heard nothing from the US delegation.
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‘Come here, right now’: Gaza doctor’s message to US envoy
Dr Tom Adamkiewicz described people “being shot like rabbits” and “a new level of barbarity that I don’t think the world has seen”.
The US delegation was defensive of the controversial GHF aid distribution that was launched by America and Israel in May, hailing its delivery of a million meals a day.
But if their new system of feeding Gaza is truly working, why are we seeing images of starved children and hearing deaths every day of people in search of food?
The backdrop of this trip is very different to the last time Mr Witkoff was here.
In May, life was a struggle for Palestinians in Gaza, people were dying in Israeli bombings but, for the most part, people weren’t dying due to a lack of food or getting killed trying to reach aid.
Mr Netanyahu’s easing of humanitarian conditions a week ago, allowing foreign aid to drop from the sky, was an indirect admission of failure by the GHF.
Yet, for now, the US is standing by this highly criticised way of delivering aid.
A UN source tells me more aid is getting through than it was a week ago – around 30 lorries are due to enter today compared to around five that were getting in each day before.
Still nowhere near enough and it’s a complex process of clearances and coordination with the IDF through areas of conflict.
Lorries are regularly refused entry without explanation.
Then there was Mr Witkoff’s meeting with hostage families a day later where we began to get a sense of America’s new plan for Gaza.
The US issued no public statement but family members shared conversations they’d had with Mr Trump’s envoy: bring all the hostages home in one deal, disarm Hamas and end the war. Easier to propose than to put into practice.
Within hours of those comments being reported in the Israeli media, Hamas released a video of hostage Evyatar David looking emaciated in an underground tunnel in Gaza.
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Video released of Israeli hostage
Now 24 years old, he was kidnapped from the Nova festival on 7 October and is one of 20 hostages understood to be still alive. The release of the video was timed for maximum impact.
Hamas also poured water on any hopes of a deal in a statement, refusing to disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established.
Hamas has perhaps become more emboldened in this demand after key Israeli allies, including the UK, announced plans for formal recognition in the last week.
It’s hard to see a way forward. The current Israeli government has, in effect, abandoned the idea of a two-state solution.
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The Trump administration’s recent boycott of international conferences on the matter suggests America is taking a similar line, breaking with its long-standing position.
Arab nations could now be key in what happens next.
In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt joined a resolution calling for Hamas to disarm and surrender control of Gaza following a UN conference earlier this week.
This is hugely significant – highly influential powers in its own backyard have not applied this sort of pressure before.
For all the US delegation’s good intentions, it’s still political deadlock. Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza left to starve and suffer the consequences.
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