Rishi Sunak will attack the last 30 years of “broken” politics – much of it under successive Conservative governments – as he pledges to fundamentally reform the UK.
In his first party conference speech as Tory leader on Wednesday, he will hit out at politicians who “spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it”.
After 13 years of Tory rule, including Boris Johnson’s Partygate scandal, the chaos of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that rocked the financial markets, and the crumbling concrete crisis in schools, he will argue he is the political leader to take the tough decisions necessary for the good of the country.
It comes as the prime minister is expected to finally confirm he will scrap the HS2 rail link to Manchester, weeks after The Independent revealed the plan.
The row over the high-speed line has overshadowed much of the conference, being held in the city, after Mr Sunak repeatedly refused to clarify its future.
In his speech, he will also accuse Labour, who are still trouncing the Tories in the polls, of wanting “power for the sake of power” and being “everything that is wrong with our politics".
His comments will be seen as throwing down the gauntlet to Sir Keir Starmer ahead of his party’s conference, which opens this weekend in Liverpool.
Presenting himself as the change candidate, Mr Sunak will attempt to set himself apart from a party that has been in power since 2010, just as Labour tries to link him remorselessly to the past 13 years.
His speech comes after a final full day of the conference which saw extraordinary claims and pledges from his ministers, including:
- Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, saying prisoners could be sent abroad as jail overcrowding reaches breaking point
- Suella Braverman claiming a “hurricane” of migrants was on their way to the UK as she vowed to close asylum hotels
- Steve Barclay outlining plans to ban trans women from female NHS wards, claiming “Tories know what a woman is”
- Michael Gove’s claiming the infamous Brexit campaign promise that leaving the EU would boost the NHS by £350m a week was being “delivered” – despite providing no evidence
In his speech, Mr Sunak will say: “There is the undeniable sense that politics just doesn’t work the way it should. [There is] a feeling that Westminster is a broken system”.
Rather than anger, there is an “exhaustion with politics. In particular, politicians saying things, and then nothing ever changing. And you know what: people are right”, he will say.
“Politics doesn’t work the way it should. We’ve had thirty years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one. Thirty years of vested interests standing in the way of change."
Boris Johnson, who presided over the Partygate scandal in Downing St— (PA Wire)
The PM will say he wants to change the political system, which is “too focused on short-term advantage, not long-term success. Politicians spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it. Our mission is to fundamentally change our country”.
David Cameron’s government gave the green light to HS2 in 2012, while another of Mr Sunak’s Tory predecessors, Theresa May, was in power when the UK made its net zero commitments – another thing the PM has recently rowed back on.
Labour argues that as Boris Johnson’s chancellor, Mr Sunak cannot set himself apart from the chaos that has engulfed the party in recent years, including the Partygate scandal and the impact of Ms Truss’s mini-Budget.
Senior Tories argue that the tilt to portray Mr Sunak as an agent of change has created some “dividing lines” with Labour, especially last month’s announcement on motorists, which helps to create a clearer choice for voters.
Labour, Mr Sunak will say, wants to “say as little as possible and hope no one notices”.
It is a “bet on people’s apathy [that] does not speak to any higher purpose or brighter future. It is about power for the sake of power. It is in short, everything that is wrong with our politics.”
Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, said: “We’ve had 13 years of Tory failure. Rishi Sunak isn’t a cure for that failure – he’s a product of it. And every day the Tories stay in power it all just carries on.
“The prime minister is too weak to take on all the competing factions and contenders already jockeying to replace him. The sooner the election comes the better because it’s time to turn the page on the Tory years and start to rebuild Britain.”
