SOCIALISTS might roll their eyes at Rishi Sunak’s bid to rebrand himself as a man who wants to change Britain.

The calculation is familiar. People are sick of the way things are. They demonstrate it week in, week out in surveys and polls in which they express dissatisfaction with our politics and politicians.

So the way to win their vote is to present yourself as the change candidate. It might seem a difficult makeover for the richest MP in the House of Commons, who is the sitting prime minister and heads a party that has been in power for 13 years.

But is it impossible? Sunak is banking on two calculations: one, that it worked for Boris Johnson, a rich and even more obviously Establishment figure.

And two, that the current Labour opposition are offering so little in the way of change that it should be straightforward to outflank them.

Sunak’s act is flimsier and even more reactionary than Johnson’s. He offers nothing on public services or investment, when in 2019 the Tories at least pretended to. Tory “populism” now consists of climate denialism, refugee-bashing and little else.

And he’ll face greater challenges than Johnson in disguising himself as an anti-Establishment candidate. 

British politics is not split down the middle as in 2019 on one issue, whether to leave the EU, which allowed Johnson to pose as the opponent of an out-of-touch elite trying to block the results of a popular vote.

There is still a Tory-leaning press, but the wall-to-wall media complicity in smearing and demonising the opposition is gone, since the opposition no longer presents a threat to big business.

The Tories have angered their base, both through the poisoning of Britain’s waterways by privatised water barons and through the soaring cost of home “ownership” as mortgages soar.

Which itself points to the most significant factor: the cost-of-living crisis, which does not just affect the poor but is placing a severe strain on many families who see themselves as middle class.

It will be a tall order for Sunak to overcome these hurdles and steer the party to another election win. But we should not completely discount it.

Labour has a big poll lead, but the Labour vote has fluctuated wildly in recent years, rising from 30 to 40 per cent between 2015 and 2017, then dropping to 32 per cent in 2019. The electorate is volatile, swinging towards whoever captures the anti-Establishment momentum.

It makes much of wins like that in Selby & Ainsty earlier this year, but these are more fragile than they look. There the Tory vote dropped 20,000 on 2019 but the Labour vote rose by just 3,000. On such form Sunak does not need to win back all that many voters to hold onto seats.

Labour could offer plenty of red meat to the electorate to make it clear it is the change party. Promises to nationalise energy and water would be popular, as would a pledge to end NHS privatisation and raise investment in public services. It could then point to clear policy differences from the Conservatives, definitive reasons why a Labour vote would change people’s lives for the better.

But currently Labour suggests, on spending and public services, that it will follow policies extremely similar to those of the current government. Not only is it giving people almost no reasons to vote for it, it boosts Sunak’s chances of pretending to be the more radical option.

Unions and MPs need to be louder in their opposition to this failure. 

A Labour government on current form would be a bitter disappointment to millions. But worse, this stance gives the Tories a better chance of clinging to office after all — and the consequences, for workers’ rights, the environment or refugees, hardly bear thinking about.