Opposition pushes for election in U.K. as Tories appoint third PM in two months
Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire says a new leader won’t undo the damage that’s been done
The United Kingdom once again has a new prime minister. Rishi Sunak won the Conservative leadership race and has officially become the country's political leader. But the government's opposition party says amid all the turmoil, it's going to take a complete overhaul to rebuild trust.
Sunak is the third person in two months to take on the role of Conservative Party leader. Liz Truss held the job for a tumultuous six weeks before resigning. Before that, Boris Johnson resigned after just over three years in the position.
In Sunak's address to the nation on Tuesday, he said he would work at rebuilding that trust and tackle the country's economic crisis.
"I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government's agenda," said Sunak. "This will mean difficult decisions to come."
In his speech, he admitted that mistakes had been made, but he is determined to finish the rest of the term Boris Johnson was elected for.
"I understand, too, that I have work to do to restore trust after all that has happened," Sunak said.
WATCH l Truss pledges stability, but says tough decisions are ahead:
But as 10 Downing Street is prepared for a new resident, Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire says a change in leadership won't be enough.
Debbonaire, a shadow leader of the House of Commons, is calling for a general election in the country. She spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal. Here's part of that conversation.
Ms. Debbonaire, the new prime minister [is] promising stability, "difficult decisions to come", "tough choices ahead." What do you hear when you hear the prime minister say those words?
What I heard in the whole of his speech was about mistakes, which he admits were made by his predecessor, Liz Truss. And they were catastrophic mistakes, which would have catastrophic consequences for working people who are going to struggle to pay their rent or their mortgage on their homes, who are going to struggle to pay their bills this winter.
They were catastrophic for pensioners who still don't know how they're going to be able to pay their fuel bills this winter.
Also, he says they were not because of ill will. But they were because of incompetence. Now that really matters because we've had 12 years of successive Tory governments, unfortunately, who have laid the groundwork here for that low growth that he mentioned.
Liz Truss saying that she wants to improve growth. Well the Tories have been in power for 12 years and we've had stagnant growth and stagnant productivity in this country all of that time.
So we need a change in my view. Changing the person at the top doesn't stop the chaos which has surrounded this government for months and months now.
I would like the British people to have a choice because politics is all about choices. I'd like them to have a choice about what happens next because it's their mortgage, their rent, their bills, their children's future that they're worried about. And I'd like to have a general election.
Elections come at a very high cost. This is just day one and he has a different course to chart, so why not give him a chance to do that?
Because the chaos has gone on for months and months. In fact, it's gone on for a lot longer than that. And I don't see even the appointments that he's making now that this really is a different course. I can say quite a few people have stayed in the same post. Some of the people that he's just appointed to his cabinet, [are] all the same people who were in Liz Truss's cabinet.
The chaos will continue. Elections come at a cost, you say, but actually so do bad budgets. When [then] Chancellor of the Exchequer [Kwasi Kwarteng], only a few weeks ago, stood up and announced tax cuts for the very wealthiest, he made that choice. And when he did that, without any plan for how he was going to pay for it, the consequences were heavy, heavy costs to the people of this country.
Is the push for this general election really about the fact that your party is doing better in the polls, now leading the Conservatives? And is your party worried that Prime Minister Sunak might actually be competent and popular and have a wide reach and could stymie your chances in the next election?
No, we're worried about what's going to happen to the country if he remains prime minister for one week more or two weeks more. We are worried because we've seen him in action as chancellor.
We're worried about what's going to happen to people's bills, what's going to happen to our children's futures, about what's going to happen to the young people who are struggling to pay their rent in the private sector, who are absolutely unable as those rents go up to save for a deposit on a home of their own, for whom that dream of home ownership is never going to happen.
People in good jobs who are having to top up their jobs with another job in order to pay their bills. We're not worried about us. We're worried about the country and the people of this country. And that's why we want them to have a choice.
And by the way, they're telling us that they want that choice. They are crying out for that choice. They know that what's happening to them at the moment is deeply, deeply damaging. And they're telling us that they would like to be able to vote for a change of government.
We offer that alternative, and we think that with a Tory government, if they are confident in their plans, should be offering the British people that choice.
Do you think that changing the leader again and quickly, is going to send a message of stability and leadership to the world?
I want to change the government, not the leader. That's what's happened yesterday. The Tories change their leader. We want to change who's in charge of the government.
A watershed moment is how one person described the firsts that come with the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. And I wonder if you feel that way, [about] his background and as I mentioned the first that comes with him taking on this role and the leadership of this government. What does it signal to you?
There are lots of elements of Rishi Sunak's background and one of them is that he will be the first person of Indian origin, the first family of Indian origin to get to walk into Downing Street. And as a person of Indian origin myself, I am incredibly proud that when children of schools that I visit in the future look at the picture of Parliament, they will see something that looks more like the country we seek to represent.
By the way, that is in no small part because the work that all political parties have done, in all different ways. It's the Labour Party that's actually brought the proportion of women, for instance, in Parliament up so that we are 50/50 in our political party. The Tories have got a way to go on that. So yes, I'm incredibly proud of that.
Produced by Katie Geleff. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
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