British Politics, from their inception, have always been clouded in controversy, more so in the last few years to months. Boris Johnson one of the latest culprits of controversy in the UK, known for divisive policies such as Brexit leading to the separation of the United Kingdom from the European union and the following results. Boris has a list of scandals under his belt, such as the decision to shut down parliament for over a month amid the height of the Brexit decision. As well as the Partygate, a scandal in which politicians such as Boris were caught partying during Covid lockdowns in the residence of the prime minister, during the poor response to the virus.

Earlier this year, the leader of the conservative party divided the country and his own party. In June he survived a vote of confidence from his peers (with 41% voting to oust him as leader) as well as an ongoing investigation into his antics and intentionally misleading parliament. Under his leadership, the UK is in the middle of the biggest cost of living crisis in decades, with inflation higher than it has ever been in 40 years and continuing to rise. Boris Johnson closed out as prime minister on September 6th but gave his final speech on July 7th, where he stepped down as prime minister and shared pride for his and his party’s accomplishments.

With the UK not being in an amazing state of affairs, Liz Truss, who followed Boris Johnson, had a lot to fix. She decided to focus on fixing the economy, the state of affairs between Russia and Ukraine, and ensuring that people have guaranteed access to NHS’s services. Obviously, Truss was not able to fulfill any of her promises. The only achievements in her run as prime minister were delivering on tax cuts. This only further led the downfall of the British economy with the value of the pound continuing to plummet, along with the cuts to parliament funds by Truss. The UK was forced to sell government bonds at such as rapid rate it threatened to topple pension funds.

This left the UK in a state worse than it would have been with Boris Johnson in charge. Liz Truss paraded about how she has a “fighter not a quitter” mindset through to October 19th, when she decided to resign. With her 6 week run as prime minister, Truss ended up with the shortest term served by British prime minister ever. This was a historic event in some form, as she came into office at a time of record breaking economic instability and was elected with a mandate for change, but in her exit speech as Prime minister she stated, “I recognize though I cannot deliver the mandate.”

Currently, Rishi Sunak stands as the prime minister of the United Kingdom as the first person of color in the role and the youngest in over 200 years. His focus is on fixing everything Liz Truss did in the prior 45 days to his term. In his first speech as Prime Minister, he stated, “I admired her restlessness to create change. But some mistakes were made. Not borne of ill will or bad intentions. Quite the opposite in fact, but mistakes nonetheless.” Sunak doesn’t seem to be focused on fixing any of Boris’s mistakes as in the house of commons, and in public he continues to speak highly of Brexit and focused on maintain it among other policy changes.

A plethora of issues are already building in Sunak’s term. In his own party, members such as Sir Gavin Williamson the former minister of state have been accused of abusive behavior towards MPs and civil servants. In terms of Climate Change, following scrutiny from other prominent government officials internationally such as Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron and locally Boris Johnson, Sunak backtracked on his decision not to attend the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt. The country in such a disgruntled state of affairs and neither the Labour or Conservative party have a real plan to get it into shape. The UK is left with a list of questions detrimental to their livelihoods left in the hands of a party that could be looking to have their 4th leader in a single year.