Five prime ministers, austerity & Brexit: 14 years of UK Conservative rule

If there's one abiding legacy of the past 14 years in the fractured United Kingdom, it's Brexit. The UK's tortuous departure from the European Union after a 47-year membership remains a highly divisive issue across the country. 

A report in January by data consultants Cambridge Econometrics said Brexit wiped £140 billion ($177 billion) off the UK economy in the first four years since the country's official departure. 

Yet despite growing buyer's remorse among the 52 percent of voters who backed Brexit during the 2016 referendum, the country's relationship with the EU didn't feature prominently in this election, with neither the Conservative or Labour parties keen to address the elephant in the room.

Instead it was issues like the deteriorating state of the National Health Service (NHS), the cost of living crisis and the state of the country's polluted waters that dominated the campaign - along with the two main parties making repetitive pre-scripted accusations on recent and future tax rises and swapping jibes on each other's fitness for office.

The roots of the Conservative's demise can arguably be traced back to the first of the party's four successive election victories. When David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010 he introduced an austerity package in response to the global financial crisis. Although the policy was backed in its early years by voters, the effect of that period's sharply reduced public service funding has become a running sore in recent years.

Austerity's impact continues to this day, with the Conservatives' opponents blaming it for everything from the rise in hospital waiting lists to the vast increase in food banks required to feed an alarming number of working and non-working poor.

It was Cameron who held the referendum on leaving the European Union. Much to his surprise, Britain voted by a narrow margin for Brexit. Far from stopping his party "banging on about Europe," as Cameron famously predicted, the fallout from the referendum sucked energy from the next four years of attempted government delivery. 

Immigration was a key referendum issue and remains so today, with the failure to stem the flow of illegal migrants creating the conditions for the far-right Reform UK party to eat into Conservative vote-share in the election.

After Cameron resigned in the wake of the Brexit referendum he was replaced by Theresa May who became consumed by the difficulties in negotiating the UK's departure. Three years later, unable to get her negotiated deal with the EU through Parliament, she too resigned.

Then came the charismatic and controversial leader Boris Johnson on a pledge to 'Get Brexit Done'.  In December 2019 he called an election and won a huge majority, with a weary electorate keen to turn the page on the issue. Within weeks, Johnson had formalized an agreement with the EU.

Brexit, though, was quickly overshadowed by the Covid pandemic. Johnson was slow to react, but the Government did commit billions of dollars to a furlough scheme which prevented mass redundancies and companies going bust.

Johnson also won praise as one of the first world leaders to provide weapons to back Ukraine following the outset of Russia's 'special military operation'.

In the end it was Covid that was to prove Johnson's undoing as it emerged that he and his staff were enjoying regular drinks gatherings during lockdown, the growing 'Partygate' scandal in 2022 leading to the draining away of his parliamentary support. 

Johnson's constant denials ensured the scandal dragged on but in September that year he too resigned. His replacement Liz Truss proved herself a maverick, lasting just 50 days, the shortest serving and most unpopular Prime Minister in history. Her unfunded tax cuts spooked the financial markets, forcing the Bank of England to raise interest rates, causing inflation and higher mortgages. The Conservatives' traditional reputation for sound economic management lay in ruins. 

Rishi Sunak took over and managed to calm the markets and bring inflation down. Cutting immigration levels, though, proved far more difficult.

Five Prime Ministers in 14 years reflects the deep divisions within the Conservative Party. Divisions which are likely to deepen, post-election. The last time it was ejected from office, with the first Tony Blair landslide, the party turned rightwards. It took a second heavy defeat in 2001 before the party began returning to the more profitable electoral center ground. How fast the party learns the lessons this time around may be key to any eventual recovery.

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