Rishi Sunak faces criticism from the right wing of his ruling Conservative party over his “shameful” China policy and failure to build more homes, as he tries to limit the fallout from last week’s dismal Tory local election results in England.
The British prime minister will convene his cabinet on Tuesday and seek to stem growing internal unrest in his party by urging colleagues to pull together after losing nearly 1,000 seats in the board of governors last week.
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Ian Duncan Smith on Monday launched a scathing attack on Sunak’s “shameful” decision to send his investment minister to Hong Kong, the first visit by a British minister to the territory in five years.
Domestically, divisions have re-emerged among Tory MPs over how to deal with Britain’s housing crisis, exposing the north-south divide in the party ahead of the expected general election next year.
Lord Dominic Johnson’s visit to Hong Kong to drum up trade and “renew the UK’s investment ties with the city” has sparked outrage among China hawks in the Conservative Party.
Johnson said he will talk to the Hong Kong administration about boosting trade and investment in financial technology, financial services and other key areas, and increasing cooperation across clean growth, arts and culture.
Duncan Smith said the visit was part of the “kowtow project,” referring to Sunak’s efforts to engage economically with China despite Beijing’s repressive measures in Xinjiang and crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong.
Johnson insisted that the government “will not ignore Hong Kong or ignore its historical responsibilities to its people. We will continue to stand up for them, advocate the violation of their freedoms and hold China to its international obligations.”
“It seems surprising to me that a government minister would visit Hong Kong after China destroyed the Sino-British agreement,” Duncan Smith told the Financial Times. The 1984 agreement set the terms for Hong Kong’s transition from British rule to Chinese rule in 1997.
“Our China policy has gone soft, trade links are being chased and Xi is laughing at us,” he said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. He referred to King Charles attending the coronation of Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, whom he described as “the architect of the crackdown on the people of Hong Kong”.
Sunak has also come under attack from the right of his party over his decision to drop housing construction targets last year. Simon Clarke, a former cabinet minister in Liz Truss’ short administration, said Sunak had made a “huge mistake”.
Clarke, an MP for Teesside, told the BBC the government had tried to stick to “the worst instincts of the public” and that had backfired in last week’s local elections.
“In these results there is one theme that stands out above all others for me and that is that we cannot outsmart the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, Nembe,” he said.
But a Tory MP defending her seat in the south of England rejected Clarke’s result. Theresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet, near London, said: “This election shows just how much people care about protecting their local environment from overdevelopment.”
Villiers argued that councils should have more control over where houses are built to ensure greenfields are protected. Southern Conservative MPs are worried about the threat from the Liberal Democrats, who gained more than 400 seats last week.
Sunak is also under pressure from some Tory supporters to start cutting taxes, while many Tory MPs in the north want more public spending to deliver on the party’s “red wall” promises.