Rishi Sunak speaks out on his biggest mistakes in Downing Street

Britain’s latest former prime minister has reflected on what he might have done differently during his time in Downing Street. As Sean O’Grady explains, such contrition is rare

Rishi Sunak has spoken for the first time about his relatively brief and challenging time as prime minister, his record on migration, and his pledge to “stop the boats”. It begs a few questions about the strategy he adopted, about how former PMs should behave, and also the present state of his party…

Regrets, Rishi?

He has a few. He says now that the promise to “stop the boats” – one of his five “people’s priorities” unveiled at the end of 2022 – was “too stark, too binary” and couldn’t actually be delivered.

This is correct, and not just with the benefit of hindsight: it was also quite obvious when Sunak placed it at the centre of his challenging campaign to get re-elected. Indeed, both he and his home secretary at the time, Suella Braverman, were asked whether “stopping” the boats literally meant zero and, if not, what ballpark figure might be attached to the promise. Wary of getting himself snagged on another migration target, such as David Cameron’s 100,000 figure, the question was evaded. Voters were not impressed.

Anything else?

Sunak enters a slightly pathetic plea that he didn’t have a mandate – from the party membership or the electorate – and thus was in a weak position from which to stamp his authority on his administration and drive policy forward. Yet it was he and his team who decided that, after the twin debacles of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss premierships, and having come top in the Tory MPs’ vote, it would be better that any election was avoided (and besides, they might have elected Penny Mordaunt instead). What is left unsaid is whether she’d have fared better by election day in 2023 or 2024.

Is Sunak right?

“Stop the Boats” was a silly slogan and a plainly doomed attempt to emulate “Get Brexit Done”, which worked so powerfully for Johnson in the 2019 general election. But by the time Sunak got in, Johnson had destroyed the party’s association with good governance with sleaze and Partygate, and Truss had shredded its reputation for economic competence with the mini-budget. Sunak’s goose was cooked whatever he did, and his fractious, conspiratorial party didn’t help him avoid a historic electoral disaster.

Is it a good idea to admit regrets?

Former PM’s don’t think so, on the whole. In his unreliable memoir, Unleashed, Boris Johnson apologises only for apologising – saying that his apology for Partygate was a “mistake”, and a “pathetic” and “grovelling” one at that. Liz Truss, who has more to apologise for than most, defiantly claims she was the victim of a malevolent “deep state” and was correct all along. Theresa May hasn’t said much, while David Cameron is almost contrite about his disastrous decision to hold the in/out referendum on EU membership that led to Brexit. Tony Blair says his biggest blunders were the ban on fox hunting and the Freedom of Information Act, and is not sorry he helped get rid of Saddam Hussein.

What’s the lesson?

Get your spin in early. As Winston Churchill put it, possibly apocryphally: “History will be kind to me – for I intend to write it.”