Stop The Boats slogan was ‘too stark’, admits Sunak

Rishi Sunak has said the Stop The Boats slogan during his time as prime minister was “too stark”.

Mr Sunak said the drive to stop migrants was correct, but conceded the way the message was given to the public “wasn’t quite right”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking With Nick Robinson podcast the slogan was “too stark… too binary”, saying that while he believed the priorities he pushed during his time in office were the right ones, he “probably should have put those priorities… in a better context for exactly how challenging it was”.

‘Unfair’

“Our generosity is limitless, and our compassion is limitless, but our resources are not,” he said about the drive to stop migrants. “It’s just fundamentally unfair, and fairness is central to our national character, and when people see this happening, I think it undermines that sense of fairness on which our society, our way of life, is based on.”

He denied that calling an early general election was a snap decision, saying he wanted a mandate for his policies.

“I thought about it hard, and I had been thinking about it for quite a while, what the right thing to do was,” he says.

“When I reflect back on it, I know the reasons why I did it, I thought hard about it, and what I have not ever heard, really, in a compelling fashion, is what would have dramatically improved three months later.

“I think getting the Rwanda scheme up and running was going to be hard, and I think it would have required a mandate.

“Similarly, tax and spend, we’ve been having these conversations, I wanted to do quite radical things, whether on welfare spending or others, and I think those would have been hard to do without a mandate.”

Defence

He said he would back his successor Kemi Badenoch if she wanted to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and that he would cut welfare spending to pay for an increase in the defence budget.

“I think, quite frankly, that is the most important thing for the country to do next, so that we can fund defence adequately,” he said.

Having left Downing Street after the election defeat in July 2024, he said he was “excited” about what happens next.

“I’m 44, I’ve got years ahead of me, and I don’t want being prime minister to be the only thing that defines me professionally. I think I’ve got plenty more to contribute.”