Former Tory PM Rishi Sunak, whose party was hammered at the general election, said his five priorities for fixing Britain weren’t properly communicated to the public
Rishi Sunak expresses regrets over ‘Stop the Boats’ slogan
Rishi Sunak has admitted his “Stop the Boats” slogan was a mistake – describing the line as “too stark”.
The former Tory Prime Minister, whose party was hammered at the general election, said his five priorities for fixing Britain weren’t properly communicated to the public. His five priorities, which were often flaunted at events or speeches, were to halve inflation, get the economy growing, get national debt falling, cut NHS waiting list and stop small boats from crossing the English channel.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking podcast, he said the way the Stop the Boats slogan wasn’t was communicated to the public “wasn’t quite right”. And his promise to stop small boats crossing the English channel was ultimately not kept with thousands of migrants making the dangerous journey during his tenure.
Speaking about the slogan, Mr Sunak said: “It was too stark, too binary. And I probably should have put those priorities, which I still believe were the right priorities, in a better context for exactly how challenging it was.” He went on: “Our generosity is limitless, and our compassion is limitless, but our resources are not. It’s just fundamentally unfair, and fairness is central to our national character, and when people see this happening, I think it undermines that sense of fairness on which our society, our way of life, is based on.”
Mr Sunak said he has reflected on the phrase and learned a lesson from it, having previously thought there was “a value in clarity”. Human rights groups have previously warned that the focus on “stopping the boats” fails to recognise desperate migrants crossing the channel are human beings.
Elsewhere in the podcase Mr Sunak denied that calling an early general election was a snap decision, saying he wanted a mandate for his policies. “I thought about it hard, and I had been thinking about it for quite a while, what the right thing to do was,” he said.
“When I reflect back on it, I know the reasons why I did it, I thought hard about it, and what I have not ever heard, really, in a compelling fashion, is what would have dramatically improved three months later. I think getting the Rwanda scheme up and running was going to be hard, and I think it would have required a mandate. Similarly, tax and spend, we’ve been having these conversations, I wanted to do quite radical things, whether on welfare spending or others, and I think those would have been hard to do without a mandate.”
Mr Sunak was also grilled on his time as Chancellor – and the Partygate scandal. Asked if he thought about resigning over receiving a fixed term penalty for breaking lockdown Covid rules, which he apologised for at the time, he said he “thought about it at the time but I had an important job to do.”
Asked about how angry members may have thought “how dare you” run for PM after the scandal, Mr Sunak added: “I believe we had a process within our party, a democratic process, and ultimately I was fine to participate in that.”
