Rishi Sunak became the first prime minister of color in the history of the United Kingdom on October 25, 2022. He replaced former prime minister Liz Truss after she signed £45 billion ($50.6 billion) in tax cuts, questioning Britain’s legitimacy and putting the market at risk.
Before Liz Truss’ short-lived time in office, Boris Johnson announced that he would resign from his duty as prime minister of the UK in July of 2022. Drawing international attention, his forfeit was reportedly a result of countless scandals and citizens’ growing dissatisfaction with worsening living conditions.
One of his biggest scandals was his involvement in numerous parties at his residence, 10 Downing Street despite being in the COVID-19 lockdown, with one of them even occurring the night before Prince Philip’s funeral. Since then, he has been in the spotlight for being one of the first prime ministers in the UK to break a law while on duty; additionally, the police conducted further investigations and fined him for his disobedience.
Although Johnson did receive a lot of attention for his wrongdoing, he did not lose all hope. In the recent months of the Russia-Ukraine war, he funded over $2 billion to aid Ukraine when towns and cities were being attacked by nuclear missiles. This was the largest supply given after the United States, which donated over $16 billion in military equipment and security assistance to fight against Russia. Many argue that if these donations weren’t made, Ukraine would have collapsed early in the war.
While his generosity may have improved his public image internationally, he was still under scrutiny by his own people. In June 2022, he narrowly dodged a vote of no confidence by other members of the government, indicating instability in his position as prime minister. A countless number of members from his party resigned in an extremely slim time period – a feat never seen before in the British parliament.
While some of these members quit due to allegations of illegal activity, many lawmakers (a large fraction of them being from his own conservative party) gained significant disapproval from the prime minister’s careless work. At one point, over fifty representatives resigned within two days. Soon after, Boris Johnson delivered his final speech as prime minister of Britain, stating that he would resign from leading the conservative party and would remain prime minister only until a replacement had been selected.
In the days following the speech, the British conservative party appointed Liz Truss, the UK’s former foreign secretary, as the leader of the conservative party and new prime minister. She won the vote against Rishi Sunak, former secretary of the treasury and long-time parliament member. Sunak warned that Liz Truss’ promise of drastic tax cuts would damage the country and its economy. While Truss started strong with many citizens hoping for a better and more tactical prime minister, her proposal of £45 billion ($50.6 billion) in tax cuts shocked the worldwide market and sparked major inflation throughout the UK, just as Sunak predicted. Just over forty days after Truss took office, she stepped down from the position and became the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the country.
After Truss’ resignation, Rishi Sunak was next in line for the most important position in Britain’s government. His appointment of the role made him the first prime minister of color in the nation, specifically the first of Indian heritage and the Hindu religion. As a 42-year-old, he is also the youngest to serve since 1812. Sunak, who studied business at Stanford, confirmed that there is an economic crisis sweeping over England and pledged that he will do the best he can to fix it.
With his impressive profile and long-time commitment to his political party, many believe he is capable of handling the unstable state of one of the world’s most powerful nations. Though Sunak promises economic stability in the future, he expects “difficult decisions to come” in the process as the United Kingdom crawls its way out of economic recession.
