Rishi Sunak said he is “ultimately responsible” for the party’s poor performance in the polls as he seeks to turn around a 20 point deficit with just under three weeks until polling day.
In an interview with The Times, Sunak denied that the Conservatives were suffering because of the fallout from Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.
“I’m ultimately responsible for what I’m doing and no one else is. It rests on my shoulders,” he said.
But Sunak noted that the economy had been buffeted by a series of major shocks from which it was only just starting to emerge. These shocks have had a major impact on living standards over the last parliament.
“We have had a tough time,” he said, pointing to the impact of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. “But I really think that after a lot of hard work and resilience from everybody, we’ve got through the worst of that and we’ve turned a corner,” he continued.
“The economy is growing faster than all our major competitors. Inflation is back to normal, wages are rising, energy bills are falling, so people can, I hope, start to feel more confident about the future,” Sunak said.
The Prime Minister also defended his record on Brexit, suggesting that the UK had made good use of its ‘Brexit freedoms’.
“I was proud to support Brexit and it was the right decision for our country because we can take advantage of the opportunities that are now ahead of us. We’re signing free-trade deals around the world, which have now led to Brexit Britain overtaking France, the Netherlands and Japan, to become the fourth largest exporter in the world,” he said.
Sunak claimed that leaving the EU had enabled Britain to regulate “the industries of the future…in a flexible way.”
“We are embracing innovation and growth and competitiveness,” he added, suggesting Labour would seek to “reverse” the progress made by the Conservatives since leaving the EU.