2 November 2022

Can Rishi Sunak Unite Britain?

Amy Mackinnon

After a turbulent few weeks in Britain, Rishi Sunak became the country’s prime minister on Tuesday, the third in less than two months. Sunak makes history as the United Kingdom’s first prime minister of color. He faces unprecedented challenges: a Conservative Party in chaos, a spiraling economic crisis, war in Europe with no end in sight, and calls for an immediate general election to replace him.

With rising inflation and energy prices and doubts about his political mandate, I wanted to find out what he will do to reverse the country’s trajectory. Can he stabilize the economy? Can his leadership revive the country’s relationship with the European Union? What will his policies on China and Russia’s war in Ukraine look like?

Foreign Policy interviewed two experts on the topic on FP Live, the magazine’s forum for live journalism: Anand Menon, a professor of European politics and foreign affairs and the director of UK in a Changing Europe at King’s College London, and Robin Niblett, a distinguished fellow and former director and chief executive at Chatham House. What follows is a condensed and edited transcript. Subscribers can click on the video atop this page to watch the full discussion.

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