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From Sunak to Starmer: What’s next for AI in the UK?
The guard has changed in Britain. For the first time in 14 years, the Labour Party is back in power, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who took office on July 5.
Starmer was set to introduce a long-awaited artificial intelligence bill last Wednesday as part of the King’s Speech, in which Charles III read out the new government’s agenda. But the AI bill was pulled at last minute from the address for undisclosed reasons.
We’ll take a look at Labour’s agenda for potential AI legislation — what they’re planning, when it could come, and how their focus will differ from their Tory predecessors. But first, let’s examine Rishi Sunak’s legacy and whether he accomplished his goal of being a global leader on AI.
What did Sunak accomplish?
Sunak’s crowning moment was the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park on Nov. 1-2, 2023. The summit, held at the famed World War II codebreaking facility, was a global gathering on artificial intelligence safety aimed at international cooperation to deter AI’s worst-case scenarios from occurring. The Bletchley Declaration, the resulting document, was signed by the UK, the United States, and the European Union, but also, notably, China, along with two dozen other signatories. (And Sunak got to pal around with tech CEOs such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman, xAI’s Elon Musk, and DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman — who has since joined Microsoft.)
Bletchley was an important international agreement, but it also signaled that the UK’s leadership — under Sunak, at least — would be light-touch. He didn’t call for AI legislation, preferring to deploy Bletchley as a voluntary global corporate and government agreement.
Nick Reiners, a senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group, said the hyperfocus on “existential risk” of AI is somewhat of a niche Silicon Valley obsession, a crowd that Sunak was interested in appeasing. “He saw AI as a way to build a legacy in a short time and this issue was something that animated him personally.”
What’s on deck for Labour?
Scott Bade, also a senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group, doubts Starmer will follow Sunak’s lead on AI, but said he won’t throw away the standing that Sunak won for the country either. “Starmer does not have a signature global issue yet, and is unlikely to see AI as that issue,” Bade said. “But I'd be surprised if the UK didn’t keep showing up at the table to build on what Sunak did since this is the niche Britain now has in AI global governance. It will just be dialed down a peg or two.”
Compared with Sunak’s existentialist concerns, Starmer should be more focused on the short-term harms of artificial intelligence, Reiners said, citing workers’ rights and bias as examples. And with that comes the promise of actual legislation.
The bill that Labour was set to introduce would have reined in the most powerful large language models — but actual regulation seems to have been pushed off. In his speech, King Charles read off bills about cybersecurity as well as digital information, which seem to have won out over the AI bill, at least for now. “My suspicion is that they opted not to present this [AI regulation] now as they didn’t want to upset their growth narrative,” one tech leader told the Financial Times. Reiners said that departmental limits on parliamentary bills per session could be a constraint as well, and that AI was a lower priority.
When an AI bill is introduced, expect it to still be light-touch relative to the more expansive European AI Act. “I would say the UK is still generally respected as taking a thoughtful innovation-friendly approach to regulation in general,” Reiners noted.
The UK is home to successful AI startups such as Stability AI, maker of the image model Stable Diffusion, Google’s DeepMind lab, and the digital avatar company Synthesia, which we profiled in last week’s edition. And big AI-focused US tech companies, such as Microsoft and Salesforce have recently invested in the country. With the country’s economy on the ropes, Starmer’s challenge is to introduce legislative reforms that won’t totally scare off Big Tech.Rishi Sunak drowing.
Sunak’s gamble leaves Tories on the edge of defeat
A week ago, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gambled his career, his legacy, and the future of the Conservative government by calling earlier-than-expected snap elections on July 4 – a seemingly no-win decision given that his party has been underwater by some 20 points in the polls.
Speaking of underwater, standing outside No. 10 Downing St. in the pouring rain without an umbrella (not the first nor last piece of evidence that his aides must really dislike him), the utterly soaked prime minister described his premature date with destiny as “a moment for Britain to choose its future.” Sunak argued that the most geopolitically dangerous global environment in decades (fact-check: true) calls for the stability and predictability at the helm of the UK government that only Tories can deliver (although “stability” and “predictability” are surely not the first two words that come to mind when I think of the last several years of mostly shambolic Conservative rule). The address also previewed a bitterly personal campaign against Labour leader Keir Starmer, accusing him of being willing to say anything to win power and then go back on his word (aka a politician).
The prime minister defied calls from a majority of his party’s MPs to wait to stage the poll until the fall, when they hoped (and most analysts expected) voters would start to feel the benefits of an improving economy and public opinion might have moved in the Tories’ favor. Instead, Sunak used last week’s marked drop in inflation to 2.3% – slightly higher than forecast by the Bank of England but still meeting the PM’s electoral promise to halve it – as the springboard for a six-week (Americans can only dream!) election campaign. The PM was told by his advisors that inflation had bottomed out and would rise again over the coming months – and that reduced fiscal space for tax cuts later in the year would reduce his room for maneuver down the line. This made him fear that the economic outlook was never going to look better than now.
Sunak’s decision to go for broke stunned Tory MPs who had expected him to at least wait until after the first flights deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda had taken off, allowing him to go some way to meet another of his signature campaign pledges: “stopping the boats.” But the prospect of further implementation delays due to legal challenges after getting the law passed through parliament in April, and thousands more refugees crossing the English Channel in small dinghies during the summer months, was another reason why Sunak opted for an early election.
Another factor in Sunak’s shock decision to call the first July election since 1945, against the advice of most Tory MPs and strategists and despite consistently trailing in the polls by 20 points, was his entrenched belief that Starmer is a disingenuous flip-flopper whose soft support would crumble under the intense scrutiny of an imminent election. Hard work and good debate performances, Sunak’s thinking went, could persuade the higher-than-usual number of undecided voters (roughly 20%) to back the Tories – however reluctantly – against the unproven and untrustworthy Starmer-led Labour, creating a pathway to victory.
But that is just wishful thinking. The last time Conservatives had a polling lead was in November 2021. It’s already been a week since the announcement, and the polls have not budged. While polling gaps will likely narrow before July 4 (especially given the high proportion of undecided voters that remain, some of whom are disenchanted Tories who’ll return to the fold), Sunak would need a political miracle to pull off a comeback. After 14 years of Tory rule marred by political scandals, economic stagnation, surging immigration, and the Brexit debacle, Labour is almost certain to capitalize on the British public’s desire for change, win a comfortable majority (albeit short of the landslide secured by Tony Blair in 1997), and make Starmer the UK’s next prime minister.
To be sure, Labour's path to reviving Britain’s fading global clout won’t be smooth. For starters, the new government will inherit a sluggish economy with large structural imbalances and limited policy space. And yet, it should be decently well-positioned to deliver policies and reforms that reduce the current uncertainty about fiscal stability, rebuild relations with the European Union, and ultimately lead to a sustained rise in trade, investment, productivity, and growth.
The future remains unwritten, but a new chapter in UK history is upon us.
First Minister Humza Yousaf and his wife Nadia El-Nakla leaving Bute House, the official residence of First Minister, after he announced that he will resign as SNP leader and Scotland's First Minister, avoiding having to face a no confidence vote in his leadership. Mr Yousaf's premiership has been hanging by a thread since he ended the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens last week. Picture date: Monday April 29, 2024
Turmoil in Scotland as first minister resigns
On Monday, Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, announced he would resign following a controversial move last week to end the SNP’s power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Green Party. Once Yousaf’sresignation is formalized, Scotland will need a new first minister within 28 days.
In the coming days, it will become clear whether SNP officials can settle on a consensus party leader to engineer a hoped-for political comeback ahead of national polls or whether they will have to hold a leadership contest.
Yousaf’s resignation is just the latest sign ofturmoil within the party that has dominated Scotland’s politics for the past decade. Yousaf became first minister 13 months ago following a scandal that led to the arrest of former party leader Nicola Sturgeon.
Across Britain, this move will further boostBritain’s Labour Party, which looks poised to reclaim its place as the first party of Scotland, adding to the seats in parliament it’s likely to win in national elections expected later this year. The Scottish Parliament was established in 1999 amid hopes in London that a devolution of more decision-making power to Scotland would help ease demand for its independence from the UK.Calton Hill and Edinburgh city scenic view at sunset Beautiful view of Edinburgh at sunset Edinbourgh United Kingdom.
Labour takes the lead in Scotland
Good news for Britain’s Labour Party: Anew poll from YouGov shows that, for the first time in nearly a decade, the party leads in Scotland, a result that can bolster its already-high odds of winning the UK’s next general election, probably this fall.
Years ago, Labour could count on votes in Scotland, where the Conservative Party is traditionally less popular than in England and Wales, to boost its seat total in the UK parliament. In 2010, a year when Scotland’s own Gordon Brown led Labour, the party won 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats. But as demand for an independence referendum lifted the Scottish National Party to prominence, Labour won just one seat in Scotland in 2015 and the same in 2019.
But the SNP, burdened with the disappointment of the failed referendum, a poor economy, and scandals that engulfed once-popular leader Nicola Sturgeon, has faded, and Labour is again in favor with Scottish voters.
Nationally, Labour already leads Conservatives by 20 points. A restoration in Scotland could help the party and its current leader, Sir Keir Starmer, secure the landslide win they seek and a return to 10 Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty at the Conservative Party's conference.
Sunak makes his big pitch
In his first major address to the British Conservative Party conference since becoming prime minister last fall, Rishi Sunak certainly ruffled some feathers.
The biggest announcement at the conference, held in Manchester, was Sunak’s decision to scrap the northern part of the HS2 railway project, Britain’s first extended high-speed rail network, planned to run through the country’s nucleus. Scrapping this leg of the route means severing the path between Birmingham and Manchester.
Sunak says the move will save billions of pounds amid a cost-of-living crunch that’ll be directed to other railway and bus services. But many critics – including Tory stalwarts like former PM David Cameron, who pioneered the project back in 2013 – are calling the decision a mistake.
Sunak allies say that the cost of the project, which the Cameron government earmarked at £37 billion a decade ago, is rising too much and cutting back could save important tax dollars.
But business leaders say Sunak’s flip-flopping will undermine investor confidence in government decision-making and that ditching a much-needed infrastructure overhaul will negatively impact economic growth.
Sunak pitched himself to the forum as a changemaker after years of failed leadership – Tories have ruled for 17 of the past 30 years – in a clear effort to mix things up. After years of political tumult, the Tories are now trailing the Labour Party by 16 percentage points in some national polls.
It’s clear that Brits have soured on the Conservative Party and that the Labour Party would win if elections, set to take place before Jan. 2025, were held tomorrow. Still, polls suggest a gap between disdain for the Tories and enthusiasm for the alternative. Next week, it’s Labour leader Keir Starmer’s turn to address his party’s conference in Liverpool and put forward a positive policy message. The pressure is on.
Grant Shapps leaves Downing Street after being appointed Defence Secretary in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's mini-reshuffle.
Meet the UK’s new defense secretary
After British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace resigned from his post this week, PM Rishi Sunak tapped Conservative MP Grant Shapps to take his place.
Shapps, who has served in several cabinet positions since 2019 – most recently overseeing the Department of Energy Security – was not on many people’s bingo cards to take over the defense portfolio due to a lack of foreign policy and national security experience.
Still, some analysts say that Sunak likely tapped Shapps, who backed him for the Tory leadership, because of his apt communication skills – skills the PM hopes can help the party connect with an electorate that’s soured on the Tories after years of political tumult.
Shapps traveled to Kyiv last week as part of a plan to help Ukraine power its nuclear plants.The UK has been one of the world's staunchest supporters of Ukraine to date.
The PM made a few other tweaks to the cabinet this week, but some critics say that he should have done more to shake things up within the party this summer as a general election looms, and Labour remains nearly 20 points ahead in the polls.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak holds a huddle with political journalists on board a government plane as he heads to Washington.
What does the UK’s Sunak want from Biden?
The so-called special US-UK relationship has taken a series of hits in recent years – think Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit – but things appear to have gotten back on track under President Joe Biden and PM Rishi Sunak.
That camaraderie is currently on full display as Sunak landed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday for a two-day visit. He will meet with Biden at the White House on Thursday, after meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate leadership at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Despite their 40-year age gap, the two men, who sit on different sides of the political middle, are closely aligned on Ukraine, Russia, and China policy.
The ongoing war in Ukraine – particularly the recent breach of a crucial dam in the south – will be top of the agenda when they meet, as well as how to regulate artificial intelligence, with Sunak having emerged as a tough critic of the emerging tech.
The state of bilateral economic ties, perhaps the thorniest topic, will also be a key feature of the summit. Consider that when Biden came to office in 2021, he nixed a larger US-UK trade deal proposed by Trump that the Brits hoped would bolster their shaky post-Brexit economy. (Though a free-trader, Biden has focused on providing subsidies at home to boost US manufacturing with his signature Inflation Reduction Act, which Sunak aides have dismissed as “protectionist.”)
Still, perhaps to tamper expectations, Downing Street says that Sunak won't push for an expansive UK-US free trade agreement this week, knowing that the White House isn’t quite there.
Supporters of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu demonstrate as a Turkish court reaches a verdict in his trial.
What We're Watching: Turkish political verdict, Nagorno-Karabakh flareup, Sunak's immigration plan, Lula's military
Bombshell ruling in Turkey
On Wednesday, a Turkish court sentenced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu to 2.5 years in prison for the obviously heinous crime of calling election officials "fools" after they annulled the result of the May 2019 race he won. Context: Imamoglu's slim victory then was questioned by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Law & Justice party, which forced a rerun only to see Imamoglu win again by a wider margin. The double loss was a slap in the face for Erdoğan, who is running for re-election just six months from now — with Imamoglu favored to be his main rival. On the one hand, Erdogan is trying to pull the oldest authoritarian trick in the book by getting loyalist judges to throw his enemy in jail. On the other, since Imamoglu will surely appeal, the snail-pace legal system won’t confirm his conviction ahead of the presidential vote. Will Erdogan’s move further boost the mayor in the polls, convincing an alliance of six opposition parties to pick Imamoglu as their candidate? Throwback: in 1997, when Erdoğan himself was mayor of Istanbul, he did time in jail and was banned from political office for … reciting a controversial poem. Five years later he was elected as Turkey’s first Islamist PM.
Nagorno-Karabakh tensions rising again
For three days now, protesters tied to the Azerbaijani government have blocked the road connecting neighboring Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed ethnic-Armenian exclave that Azerbaijan claims as part of its territory. The blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh’s only tie to the outside world has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis among the mountainous region’s 150,000 people, especially after Azerbaijan reportedly cut gas supplies on Tuesday. For background, Karabakh was part of Soviet Azerbaijan, but since a brutal war in the early 1990s, the region has enjoyed a fragile de facto independence, backed by Armenia. After fresh fighting in 2020, Azerbaijan fully encircled Karabakh and has demanded that Armenia recognize Karabakh as Azerbaijan’s territory. Nothing doing, says Yerevan, which warns of an Azeri “genocide” against the Karabakh Armenians. A Russian peacekeeping mission has mostly kept a lid on things since 2020, but was reportedly unable to dislodge the current road blockade. The EU, meanwhile, has shown its usual “serious concern,” but the two main outside players are really Russia, which is Armenia’s closest ally, and Azerbaijan’s main backer: Turkey.
What’s Sunak’s immigration plan?
After first placing a tourniquet around the British economy, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is now tackling another thorny policy: immigration. Sunak, Britain’s fourth PM since 2019, outlined on Wednesday a new plan to stop migrants from traveling in rickety boats across the English Channel. (Just today, four bodies were found in the channel after a small boat capsized.) As part of his effort to clear the UK’s asylum backlog of nearly 100,000 people, Sunak’s government will resume “hostile environment” checks, meaning that asylum seekers from countries not deemed dangerous enough will be returned without having their claims processed. This is thought to be aimed at deterring Albanian nationals; 11,240 Albanians crossed the English Channel in the first nine months of this year, up from 800 in 2021. Though Sunak supports many of the hardline immigration policies floated by his former boss Boris Johnson – including the controversial Rwanda resettlement plan – the milder-mannered Sunak has taken a more pragmatic approach to the immigration issue. Unlike Boris, he’s sought to work with French President Emmanuel Macron on the issue rather than antagonize him.
Brazil’s president & its military
Brazil’s incoming president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has named a civilian to lead the military as Defense Minister. After several years of military men running the armed forces under outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, it’s a move meant to send a message: the military should remain out of politics. During this year’s bitterly contested presidential campaign, many Bolsonaro critics feared that the former army captain, who admires Brazil’s past as a military dictatorship, might ask his old pals to save him from defeat. In the end, he resisted the temptation, but his supporters are still protesting the election result, particularly outside army barracks, where Bolsonaro is popular among rank-and-file soldiers. The leftist Lula’s choice, José Múcio Monteiro, is actually a member of a right-wing party – a nod to the need for someone who can appeal across the political spectrum. Monteiro has already named new commanders for the armed forces. As Lula’s January 1 inauguration approaches, we’re watching to see how Brazil’s military, and Bolsonaro himself, respond to Lula’s attempt to ease soldiers away from Brazil’s political stage.