Acting prime minister Boris Johnson cannot seek party election to become prime minister for real again, and the rules do not allow it. So not even Boris Johnson can pull that particular rabbit out of his resourceful hat. But he is the force leading candidate Rishi Sunak will have to contend with in his bid to get elected party leader and prime minister.

Sunak brought on that opposition at least partly through the promotional video to launch his campaign. That video tells us about the humble origins of his migrant parents and his anchorage in Conservative values. It also says a good deal besides what Sunak says in it.

For a start, Sunak had been preparing a bid for the top post for some time now. The slickly produced video was launched on social media just the day after Johnson quit. The production was not the consequence of some overnight thought.

The video was aimed at the last stage of the selection process when the final run-off between the two candidates left standing was opened up to about 200,000 Conservative party members. The earlier rounds of voting will be among about 360 Conservative MPs that Sunak will not need to reach through a tweeted video. So Sunak is confident of getting at least as far as the last round.

That confidence appears at the moment well placed. More MPs have expressed support for him than for any other candidate. The bookmakers have him as the clear favourite to win. But these are early days. And Boris Johnson has not got into the act of opposing Sunak actively.

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London Eye: Split on economy behind Rishi Sunak exit

‘Treachery'

That Johnson will oppose Sunak emerges from Sunak's video itself. Sunak takes a broad swipe at Johnson in that video titled Ready for Rishi. What Britain needs, he says, is mature economic policies of the kind he brought in as Chancellor.

"Do we confront this moment with honesty," Sunak asks. "Or do we tell ourselves comforting fairy tales?" That sarcastic barb was aimed straight at Johnson's populist declaration that he was set on a policy of cutting taxes.

Sunak had opposed that move or had sought at least to limit it while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer as the finance minister of Britain is called. He wrote clearly of his differences with Johnson in his resignation letter.

The public, said Sunak, expects the government to be conducted “properly, competently and seriously." That was a serious public accusation, three times over, at the man who was his boss.

"Our approaches are fundamentally too different," he wrote. And once he resigned, he did not have to go through with a planned joint article with Boris Johnson on the way forward for the economy.

Rishi followed that up with the fairy tale stuff that did more than express disagreement with Boris Johnson - it mocked him. This has ruled the office of the still prime minister.

His office put out the word that the media were asked to attribute to a "Downing Street source" that Sunak had been "treacherous". And that it was Boris Johnson who had appointed him Chancellor when Sunak was nowhere near the front lines of government, that he had then backed Sunak as Chancellor all the way through, and that Sunak had stabbed him in the back.

Knives are out in Westminster, but that does not stop the one stabbed from crying foul, or at the least getting hurt. For Sunak, this was a conscience-driven and carefully reasoned stand driven by an honestly held difference of views, with his own views good for the country. But there could be no denying an ambition to replace Johnson as PM.

Also read: Now nine people are contesting for UK Prime Minister post, Rishi Sunak still leading

Johnson loyalists

The Financial Times quoted a cabinet minister saying that Johnson loyalists would do all they could to stop Sunak. "Rishi will get everything he deserves for leading the charge in bringing down the prime minister," the minister was quoted as saying. Now that foreign secretary Liz Truss has entered the race, Johnson is most likely to back her firmly.

He still has considerable means to do so effectively. Johnson had found enough loyalists to keep him in government in a no-confidence he won by 211 votes to 148 only weeks back. Much of that majority support slipped away following the dispute over former deputy chief ship Chris Pincher's sexual misdemeanours, and the government lies over them, and the flood of resignations that followed.

But support can be slippery both ways. What slipped away could fall the other way if enough MPs see that as opportune. Many MPs may have their reasons for seeking to block Sunak. Allegations over Sunak’s wealth and his wife's wealth are sure to resurface by Johnson’s loyal PR team.

All other candidates in the field are promising dramatic tax cuts. This may be the stuff of fairy tales. Still, in the face of inflation running out of control, MPs and party members will want that message rather than Sunak's tougher way, however economically responsible that may be.

Sunak is off to a promising start, but hurdles have appeared in his path already that he will have to cross. Boris Johnson will do much to place them in his way. The announcement from Truss is just the start.

— London Eye is a weekly column by CNBC-TV18’s Sanjay Suri, which gives a peek at business-as-unusual from London and around.

Read his other columns here

First Published:Jul 11, 2022 11:37 AM IST