Rishi Sunak faces criticism from the right of his ruling Conservative Party for his ‘shameful’ China policy and failure to build more homes, as he tries to limit the fallout from the disastrous results of the Conservative local elections in the last week in England.
Britain’s prime minister will convene his cabinet on Tuesday and seek to stem growing internal unrest in his party by urging his colleagues to stick together after the loss of around 1,000 Conservative council seats last week.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith on Monday launched a scathing attack on Sunak’s ‘shameful’ decision to send his investment minister to Hong Kong, the first visit in five years by a British minister to the territory .
Domestically, divisions have resurfaced among Tory MPs over how to handle Britain’s housing crisis, revealing a growing north-south divide within the party ahead of a general election due next year.
Lord Dominic Johnson’s visit to Hong Kong to boost trade and ‘reconnect the UK’s investment ties with the city’ sparked outrage from Chinese hawks in the Conservative to party.
Johnson said he would discuss with the Hong Kong administration about boosting trade and investment in fintech, financial services and other key areas, strengthening collaboration between clean growth, arts and culture. culture.
Duncan Smith said the visit was part of the “Kowtow Project”, a reference to efforts by Sunak to engage economically with China despite Beijing’s repressive actions in Xinjiang and the crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong.
Johnson insisted the government “would not take a look at Hong Kong or look [its] historical responsibilities to its people. We will continue to defend them, to denounce the violation of their freedoms and to compel China to respect its international obligations.
Duncan Smith told the Financial Times: “It strikes me as amazing that a government minister is visiting Hong Kong after the Chinese trashed the Sino-British deal.” The 1984 agreement set the terms for the transfer of Hong Kong from British rule to Chinese rule in 1997.
“Our policy towards China has become weak, chasing trade ties and Xi is laughing at us,” he said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. He pointed to the presence at King Charles’ coronation of Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, whom he described as “the architect of the crackdown on the people of Hong Kong”.
Sunak has also come under attack from the right in his party for his decision to abandon housing construction targets last year. Simon Clarke, a former cabinet minister in Liz Truss’ short administration, said Sunak had made a “major mistake”.
Clarke, an MP for Teesside, told the BBC the government tried to pander to “the public’s worst instincts” and backfired in local elections last week.
“In these results, there’s one theme that stands out above all others for me, and that is that we can’t outplay the Liberal Democrats and the Greens,” he said.
But a Tory MP defending her seat in the south of England rejected Clarke’s conclusion. Theresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet near London, said: “These elections show how much people care about protecting their local environment from overdevelopment.”
Villiers argued that councils should have more control over where houses have been built to ensure green fields are protected. Southern Tory MPs are worried about the threat from the Lib Dems, who won more than 400 seats last week.
Sunak is also being pressured by some right-wing Tories to start cutting taxes, while many northern Tory MPs want more public spending to deliver on the party’s ‘red wall’ pledges.
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