Politics not working as it should, all over UK says PM Rishi Sunak

The prime minister told the Conservative Party conference in Manchester that “that there is the undeniable sense that politics just doesn't work the way it should”.

In his keynote address to Tory delegates, Mr Sunak said: “Doing this job, I meet and talk to inspirational men and women across our country. You see that our most potent strength, our most powerful resource, our greatest hope is our people. But what I have learnt is.

“The feeling that Westminster is a broken system – and the same goes for Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont. It isn't anger, it is an exhaustion with politics. In particular, politicians saying things, and then nothing ever changing.”Mr Sunak did not mention in his main speech the Windsor Framework, that modified the Irish Sea border, and which the DUP says has not of its own done enough for them tor return to the assembly.

Instead talking in general terms about public disillusionment across the UK, Mr Sunak said: “And you know what: people are right. Politics doesn't work the way it should. We've had 30 years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one.”

In a wide-ranging address, Mr Sunak praised the United Kingdom as a whole, and talked of it as a family of nations.

He said that “in this Conservative Party, the party that legislated for same-sex marriage and is investing record amounts in childcare, we know that what matters is that love cascades down the generations”.

Mr Sunak added: “It is family that cares for us at the beginning of our life, it is family that helps us learn, it is family that sustains us and in old age it is family that lightens the autumn of our days.

“Family matters, and as proud Conservatives we should never be afraid to say that.

“And there's another family that matters to us all, our family of nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“Today, our Union is the strongest it has been in a quarter of a century. The forces of separatism are in retreat across our country.”

To laughter, Mr Sunak said: “Nicola Sturgeon wanted to go down in the history books as the woman who broke up our country, but now it looks like she may go down for very different reasons.

“We are a remarkable combination of four nations with a proud history and that history should give us confidence in our future. My grandparents did not emigrate to just Leicester or Southampton, but to the United Kingdom.

“They came here because our country stands for a set of values. We are the home of fair play, the best of British. We are the place for those who want to add to our national story.”

Mr Sunak said that the United Kingdom “is also the most successful multi-ethnic democracy on Earth”.

He said: “And our party has led the way on that. We had the first ethnic minority prime minister when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, we have had three female prime ministers and I stand before you today as the first non-white leader in our country's history.

“Meanwhile, Labour's last three leaders all live within the same square mile of north London. When the Richmond Conservative Association selected me in North Yorkshire, people in other countries couldn't understand it.

“One American magazine even sent a reporter to Yorkshire to write about how ‘a candidate of the wrong race [could] cost the Tories one of the safest seats in England?’

“But they should not have projected their own prejudices onto our country. The people of North Yorkshire weren't interested in my colour, but my character. Never let anyone tell you that this is a racist country. It is not.

“My story is a British story. A story about how a family can go from arriving here with little to Downing Street in three generations. What does the Conservative party offer a family of immigrants?

“The chance to become energy secretary, business secretary, home secretary, foreign secretary, even the chance to become prime minister.”