Front Burner - Election season in the UK, again

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

Standing in the pouring rain, and drowned out by protest music, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood in front of 10 Downing street with an announcement: the British public would be heading to the polls for a snap election on July 4th. British Politics has been a whirlwind for the last decade, with several conservative governments, and the polarizing passage of Brexit. And after nearly 15 years in the political wilderness, the Labour Party looks primed to deliver a historic election victory. The BBC’s UK Political correspondent Rob Watson joins the show to discuss an election that stands to deliver change, however moderate, to the British public. Help us make Front Burner even better by filling out this listener survey. 

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Last week, in the pouring rain, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a snap general election for July 4th. A decision that threatens to change the political makeup of the country for the first time in many, many years. Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future,

to decide whether we want to build on the progress we have made or risk going back to square one with no plan and no certainty. Following politics in the United Kingdom for the last half decade or so has been a bit of a whirlwind. For starters, there have been three separate conservative prime ministers in the last four years, one of which, the tenure of Liz Truss, lasted just 49 days. The Conservative Party has enjoyed what can only really be described as an era of domination, holding power for the last 14 years. In that time, they've taken on a number

of flagship issues, including Brexit, which remains polarizing as ever. As things stand today, polling data suggests that the Labour Party are likely to deliver their first general election win in more than two decades, by a historic margin. Though if British politics have taught us anything recently, we should be prepared for the unexpected. I also imagine Justin Trudeau and the Liberals will be watching what happens here very closely because there are some very key parallels going on. Rob Watson is the BBC's UK political correspondent and he joins us now to talk about

what an election in the United Kingdom will mean for Britain, Canada, and he joins us now to talk about what an election in the United Kingdom will mean for Britain, Canada, and the world. Hey, Rob, thanks so much for coming on to FrontBurner. Well, it's a pleasure to be with you, Jamie. And listening to you about all those prime ministers we've had and all the drama of the last few years, I felt rather exhausted just reflecting on what we've been through in Britain since essentially really since 2016 and rishi sunak he was he was not to be outdone last week uh his announcement was very much a spectacle it was very funny um i'm sure he didn't mean it to be but he made the announcement in the pouring rain and there were protesters present that were drowning out his speech with music, which was actually this theme song from

the opposition party, the Labour Party. Showing that when we work together, anything is possible. Our economy is now growing faster. It all seemed very haphazard. I've actually thought about it so many times over the weekend. And what did you make of that scene? Well, as you can imagine, people on social media have been having all sorts of fun at this. There's one, I'm not sure if you've seen it, there's one where someone's added some audio. So Rishi Sunak turns away from the lectern in Downing Street, and you hear the sort of squelch, squelch, squelch,

squelch, squelch, as he goes back into Downing Street. as he goes back into Downing Street. So I can tell you what most political journalists have made of it, and indeed what people inside the government and Conservative Party have made of it, which is, Rishi, what were you thinking? I mean, to take a gamble like this, to call an election when you're 20-odd points behind in the opinion polls, and to do it in what looked like such a sort of haphazard way i mean you think if you're going to take a gamble you must have had it planned right you were going to have this snazzy presentation a speech where you

sounded really upbeat all sorts of events planned and instead you know it was literally a very damp affair and so it had many people kind of thinking well well, you know, what is he up to? And some of my colleagues have sort of suggested to me, you know what, the whole thing sort of snakes of the idea that that that it's accepting defeat, you know, to launch the launch the election now is just thinking, you know what, we're going to lose. Let's just get on with it i was going to ask you that because at one point in the speech he did look and sound so defeated like it really did look to me as an outsider like this guy did not want to be the prime minister yes you're not the only one to think that i mean again some of his own party thought that some of us watching thought, goodness, this doesn't sound like the fighting, battling spirit and well-planned launch of someone who thought that they were going to win. But this hard-earned economic stability was only ever meant to be the beginning. The question now is how and who do you trust to turn that foundation into a secure future for you, your family and our country?

into a secure future for you, your family and our country. I'm told, and one always has to be a bit sceptical about these things, because Rishi Sunak, if nothing else, runs an incredibly tight ship, not much leaks out of Downing Street, including, I might say, the announcement of this election, which surprised everyone. But I'm told that he very much has his ups and downs. I don't mean in terms of,

you know, he's a moody person or anything, but that some days he's sort of optimistic that somehow the Conservatives can pull off some remarkable defeat. But that other days he's sort of wandering, oh my goodness, there's just nothing we seem to do seems to move the polls. So I don't know, maybe when he was standing in the rain, he was having one of those darker moods. I remember when Sunak came to power, right? Like he wasn't elected, but he was brought in after Liz Truss by my members of his party. I pledge that I will serve you with integrity and humility, and I will work day in, day out to deliver for the British people. He was seen as this symbol of stability, right?

Kind of like the adult in the room, if that's fair, kind of after Truss and also maybe after Boris Johnson. And how did that actually play out for him? Well, it certainly worked in terms of the financial markets and in terms of things that people are very concerned about. So inflation, cost of living, it's sort of stabilized. And you kind of lost that, the drama of the Liz Truss era. But what the conservatives were hoping was that he would do more than just stabilize things,

that things that the conservative party's popularity would somehow recover. But it just hasn't. I mean, it's now, what is it, October 2023, pretty much when he took over from Liz Truss. That disastrous barely, not even two months. Oh, the head of lettuce. I'm sure you remember the head of lettuce. Losing to a lettuce. It's quite a record. Exactly. How long can Liz remain? screamed this headline from the daily star

the entertainment tabloid is even offering its readers a live stream of a wilting head of iceberg next to a framed photo of the pm what they were hoping for just hasn't happened and what he hoped for that it wouldn't just be stabilizing things but bringing them back and i suspect a lot of that is just to do with you know the profound force known as political gravity. When you've been in power for 14 long years, when those 14 years have been as dramatic as these 14 years have been. And essentially when you have stagnating living standards, you know, I suspect that even if the most profoundly charismatic genius politician was in Mr. Sunak's position, and he's certainly none of those things, they would struggle. I saw last week that inflation is coming down in the UK. I think it was 2.3 percent.

It came in last week, which is the lowest in three years. And Sunak did say in that soggy speech that... Our economy is now growing faster than anyone predicted, outpacing Germany, France and the United States. And this morning it was confirmed that inflation is back to normal. Is there a sense that he might get a bit of a bump from that? Or do people feel like things might be getting better in the UK when we talk about the cost of living and people's outlook for the economy moving forward? Congrats, Jamie, on the getting the figure bang on right, 2.3 percent.

The answer to your question is no and no. I mean, there is there is no sense of him getting a particular bounce from this. bounce from this. And there's no sense really that this is going to lead to somehow the UK sort of shooting off in economic terms, because although Britain has returned to growth, the growth that's forecast for the next five years is very anemic. But you know, one senior conservative told me, in terms of this issue of, you know, people going to thank Rishi Sunak for anything, he said, you know, between now and the election, we could invent, Rishi Sunak could invent a cure for cancer and it probably wouldn't have much effect. And you do sort of sense that we've, you know,

we've reached that point in Britain where, again, because of those reasons of political gravity, the record of the conservatives, that people have just stopped listening. You know the way it is in a relationship, Jamie, where, I don't know, the things either have broken up or they're about to, and one person just stops listening to the other. I mean, I think that's kind of what appears to have happened between the British people and the Conservative Party. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

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That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. One thing that his party has done in the last couple of years is that they have lurched rightwards, right?

On culture war issues, on so-called wokeness, on trans rights, on immigration. Do you think that that's a fair analysis, first of all? And also, you know, has it brought them any success at all? I think it is fair, certainly in terms of the rhetoric. So the current Conservative Party, unlike David Cameron, if anyone could remember that far back 2010, where he famously hugged a hoodie in reference to, you know, to the government caring about young people who are a the uniform of a rebel army of young gangsters. But for young people, hoodies are often more defensive rather than offensive. They're a way to stay invisible in the street. And he went off to the Antarctic or the Arctic to hug a husky and to show that his econ, his credentials on the environment. So the Conservative Party very much changed from that.

But in many ways, I mean, a lot of it is rhetoric. If you actually look at the amount of net migration to the UK, it's enormous. I mean, last latest figures were like nearly 700,000. The year before, it was nearly 800,000. So immigration is a huge issue and actually on the very fundamental issue that you kind of think that conservatives they're all in favor of a smaller state and lower taxes well absolutely not the taxes here are the highest that they are since the second world war and the state is enormous and I suspect that's why you've got this sort of

disconnect where there's this new party on the right called the Reform Party, which is very pro-Bexit, very anti-immigration. And it looks like they're going to steal lots of votes from the Conservatives because they sort of think, well, you've talked a right-wing game, but you haven't actually delivered it. But what the Conservatives have done in talking up this right-wing game is frightened off an awful lot of their more sort of moderate and centrist voters, the worst of all worlds. Right. And tell me a little bit more about the party on the right. This isn't the party that people think is going to win, right? That's the Labour Party. But just tell me a little bit more about the role that they're playing in this election.

Just tell me a little bit more about the role that they're playing in this election. So it's called the Reform Party. Last, before that, it was called the Brexit Party. And sort of before that, it was UKIP, the UK Independence Party, which was all about leaving the European Union while they've done that. So it's now a party of the right. Reform UK is going up and up in the polls with our common sense policies to save Britain, whilst the Tories have been sinking in the polls with our common sense policies to save Britain whilst the Tories have been sinking in the polls.

And essentially, it's like a lot of parties of the European right. It's sort of very strongly anti-immigration. It worries about aspects of multiculturalism. It sort of argues that Muslims in particular are not integrated as they would see it. The Tories have broken Britain and Labour will give us even more mass immigration. So we have to make the case for the benefits of migration, the benefits of free movement. But there is an alternative. Only Reform UK will freeze immigration. Britain needs refilling. It wants Britain to have an even more distant relationship from the European Union.

And it's sort of economics is a sort of sometimes a strange cocktail of left and right. It wants the state to do a whole load of things, but also promises lower taxes, less regulation. And the problem for the Conservative Party, as we were just discussing, Jamie, is that, you know, for an awful lot of people in Britain, and they tend to be, and one doesn't mean this in a mean way, but people who, you know, have less education, they voted Brexit and who thought, right,

we're going to have some sort of radical change after leaving the European Union. I mean, that hasn't happened. So like a lot of people around Western democracies, you just sort of feel nobody listens to them. Immigration is too high. You know, they're dismissed as sort of stupid and backward. I mean, they're super cross and they may well vote for reform. And the problem that the conservatives have, if you think about it, you know, that they're being nibbled at from both sides. So they're being attacked by reform to the right. But they're also in danger of losing voters, centrist voters to Labour and the other smaller centre-left party, the Liberal Democrats. So they're in a nasty pincer movement.

de Pinsa movement, the opposite really of where they were in 2019, where they had this gigantic coalition of people who kind of like Boris Johnson, thought he was funny, wanted to get Brexit done, liked the idea of sort of, you know, people who tended to normally vote conservative and hated Jeremy Corbyn because they thought he was a dangerous lefty. Now that coalition is disintegrating. Tell me more about what's happening when we're talking about that pincer grip, what's happening from the left, right? The Labour Party, which is the polls are certainly projecting to win the next election under the leadership of Keir Starmer. What vision are they putting forward for the country that's so different from the conservatives? It's a very good question, Jamie.

You know, it's often said, I think, by North American political scientists that you only get three kinds of election. One, we're on the right track. Two, better the devil you know, and the Conservatives are trying a mix of those two. And then the third one, of course, is it's time for change. So that's Sakhir Starmer and the Labour Party's offer. Now, you asked about the kind of change. Well, I guess it would be what do we want? We want change. What kind of change do we want? Unthreatening change. Change that doesn't worry centrist voters, doesn't frighten businesses. And when do we want that unthreatening change? You know, soonish. Only a changed Labour Party will get Britain's future back. And make no mistake, the Labour Party

has changed. We're connected to our purpose to serve working people as you drive our country forward. So in other words, it's a very, it's a very centrist pitch. I mean, one of the main things that Keir Starmer is promising is just that British politics will be a bit less interesting over the next five years, which might be very bad news for political journalists. But I guess he thinks that the British public would rather like that, not to have a prime minister every five minutes. So, you know, I mean, in terms of macroeconomic policy, you know, they're going to come up with some kind of crazy, different, radical left of centre approach. No, I mean,

their macroeconomics is not massively different to the conservatives, which, of course, is why some on the left in this country are thinking, hang on a minute, you know, what exactly is the point? Right. I imagine that there are many people who are criticizing the party for like, from like moving away from some of its historical principles, you know, moving away from what it was under Jeremy Corbyn. you know, moving away from what it was under Jeremy Corbyn. Absolutely. And I suppose if there's one danger that Sir Keir Starmer faces is that maybe some people on the left might defect to the Green Party, which is by far and away these days, Britain's most left wing party. But I think his retort to all of that would be, you know,

good luck with old Jeremy Corbyn and the left-wing Labour Party. It was brilliant at being in opposition, but it's just not going to win power because it's often said about Britain that it's a conservative country that occasionally votes Labour. And that may not be far from the truth. I mean, certainly Sakhir Starmer's argument would be, look, we had Mr. Corbyn promising to nationalize this, that and the other. And they recorded one of their worst results ever in 2019. So he's too polite to say this, but it'd be like, so shut up, basically. And I imagine he's ready for an election and has been ready for it.

I know it was sort of a surprise that this election was called now, but it was expected, right? Sometime this year? Oh, yes. I mean, it had to be sometime between now and 2025. I mean, I think the timing of it, the specific timing of summer election, I think that really, I think it surprised people as much in the governing Conservative Party as it did Sir Keir Starmer. But they had thought that there was a chance that Mr Mr Sunak would surprise them in May. So yeah, they've been prepared. Look, I mean, they've been thinking about this ever since the Conservative Party's poll ratings collapsed. I think the Labour Party leadership has understood, look, we may well get a chance at this. You know, they've been out of power for how long now? 14

years. I think they've thought, I'm not sure that they expected to be in quite the position that they're in. But I think for the last 12 months or so, they've been thinking to themselves, you know what, we may well win this. You know, it's really interesting listening to you today because there are so many parallels with what's happening here in Canada. You know, we have this incumbent government and Justin Trudeau and the liberals. They're about 20 points behind in the polls as well. So very similar. I don't know when the Conservatives and Sunak's approval rating started going off a cliff, but for us, it was like in the summer. And you have this population like really clamoring

for change, like any kind of change. The opposition leader, Pierre Polyov, he himself isn't necessarily very popular, but he's really leading in the polls because basically putting forward this idea of turning the page, right? And so, you know, I'm just curious, I imagine that the Liberal Party here is watching this very carefully to see if Sunak can do anything here, if he can make any gains, if there are any lessons to be learned you know is there anybody in the uk that thinks well i i'm sure maybe a couple people around sunak but think that that he can he can he can pull this off in the next several weeks that that like he might surprise surprise people and and that you know he could convince voters voters in the UK that sticking with him would be like the

most stable and smart choice for them to make? I mean, of course, there are some in the Conservative Party think that. I mean, maybe Mr. Sunak thinks that. I mean, if he didn't think that, he'd just completely give up. He might stand outside Downing Street in the rain. No, just kidding. I mean, I think realistically, most Conservatives know that they're heading for a thumping. I mean, what would be really interesting in trying to assess the sort of parallels or differences between here and Canada is the extent to which in this country, it is true that voters have reached that point, whereas as far as I can make out, and the opinion pollsters can make out, they've decided this lot, i.e. the Conservatives, are so hopeless, nothing could be worse than this. In other words, it's a rather negative thing. They're not thinking, hey, wow, Keir Starmer, the Labour Party, that is not the situation here. People are very fed up. They think the country is on the wrong track. They're profoundly sceptical, fed up and just utterly, utterly appalled.

But they don't think they don't think Sakhir Starmer is the kind of solution to all of their problems. So it's not so much that Labour will win the election, but the Conservatives are likely to lose it. And the thing which is very different, again, I don't know, you know, whether this is the same with the Canada's opposition, but Tony Blair was trying to do something quite different in 1997 because the electorate then was rather different. I think a lot of water, cynical water, has been under the bridge since then. But you have this idea of kind of cool Britannia, new Labour,

we're going to be this young country, we've got a prime minister who actually has a new kid while he's in Downing Street. new Labour, we were going to be this young country, we've got a Prime Minister, you know, who's actually had a, has, you know, has a new kid while he's in Downing Street, you know, that idea of a sort of a broader project of renewal in Britain, let's become more of a meritocratic country, let's look out towards the world. Zakir Starmer isn't offering that. And I think that's partly because that's just not really who he is. But I think also because he thinks it just wouldn't work. You know, that people in this country are so sort of fed up after all the drama of the last few years, that if someone came along to them and said, hey,

you know, the last 14 years have been terrible, but let's have national renewal. Let's believe again. I mean, there's some of that, but you know what I mean? It's not Tony Blair in 1997. I think everyone just wants a bit of calmness and stability. And if there was any improvements, that would sort of be a bonus. So I don't know whether that's a true parallel with Canada or North. Rob, thank you so much for this. This was great. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on. Well, thank you very much for this. This was great. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on. Well, thank you very much for having me, Jamie. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.