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UWI political scientist Dr Bishnu Ragoonath said the British Conservative Party must now take tough decisions on the way forward after the resignation of British prime minister Liz Truss on Thursday.
Truss resigned as the UK's shortest-lived leader after just 45 days in office, after the party's members elected her as successor to Boris Johnson.
However her efforts to fulfil her low-tax pledges led her to crash the UK economy, then reverse these policies and fire her chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng.
The UK is now expected to get its fifth prime minister since 2016, after David Cameron, Theresa May, Johnson and Truss.
Ragoonath, when asked his reaction to her resignation, said, "No surprise.
"It was sheer incompetence from the beginning of Truss taking leadership of the Conservative Party.
"We now have to wait and see what process will apply."
He thought calls for a general election had some merit.
"You have to give the people at large a chance, rather than have the party electing from among itself again."
Ragoonath said the British population would now unfairly face yet another changed mandate from Conservative leadership contenders.
He recalled that Johnson had offered one mandate – Brexit (Britain's departure from the Europena Union), Truss had offered another mandate – low taxes (which she failed on), and a new leader would offer yet another, as yet unknown.
"People are not sure as to which mandate they are going to follow now.
"It might be in the best interest of the UK for the party to ask that they go to a general election earlier than normal."
Newsday asked if it was strange for Johnson to be touted to return as UK PM, after resigning over questions of honesty.
"The mere fact that Johnson led the Conservative Party to get one of the largest majorities of votes it ever got, when it won the last general election, means people might feel he was at least able to win votes from not only the base of the party, but also outside of the base of the party."
Ragoonath said in the last leadership election, former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak had the support of most MPs but not the mass membership, leading to Truss's win.
He reckoned Conservative Party members had not wanted a non-white leader.
"Personally I think what has happened over the last two months demonstrates clearly in the UK they did not want an Indian to run for prime minister."
He said something similar had applied to Kwarteng, who is of African heritage. He said the Conservative Party rank and file had rejected Sunak as leader, and others would now throw their hats in the ring.
Ragoonath wondered whether the party would now wish to repeat the lengthy leadership contest or not.
"To go through the process of having the MPs elect and bring it down to two contenders and take it to the party's wider membership."
He said it was clear the party needed leadership urgently, to lead it into the next general election.
"They will have to decide if they are going to go back through the whole process or if they are going to allow some truncated version of the election of a leader.
"We cannot have a flop again. If we have a flop again without going to a general election, then something will have to give. You can't change three prime ministers, or four, within one term."
Ragoonath expected the party's 1922 Committee (the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party) to make a relevant statement later on Thursday.
The post Ragoonath: Tough decisions after UK PM’s resignation appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.