Newsman: Former Chancellor of the Exchequer under Boris Johnson’s premiership, Rishi Sunak has won the race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party, after after seeing off his lone remaining rival in the race. Mordaunt says Sunak has her “full support” as she withdraws from race. As the sole rival to Rishi Sunak in the final stages of the race to succeed Liz Truss as British prime minister, that’s about to change.
Rishi Sunak receives votes from more than 50% of Tory MPs.. Rishi Sunak will become Britain’s Prime Minister after Penny Mordaunt said in a statement that “we all owe it to the country” to get behind him.
Mordaunt had been scrambling to get enough support from MPs to make the final ballot in the leadership race, while Sunak passed the threshold comfortably.
“This decision is an historic one and shows, once again, the diversity and talent of our party. Rishi has my full support,” Mordaunt tweeted.
Earlier this summer Rishi Sunak lost out to Liz Truss in the race to replace Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson pulled out of the contest to replace Truss late Sunday, after signaling for several days that he was mounting a dramatic return to Downing Street after his own resignation in July. Liz Truss was the fourth British prime minister to resign since the country’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
Multiple polls show that the majority of Britons, especially younger ones, would prefer to be part of the EU if given the option. However, there is little appetite for a new vote.
In that role Rishi Sunak took unprecedented action to support Britain’s economy during the pandemic, with months-long programs to replace workers’ wages and incentivize consumer spending brought him in spotlight.
A popular former chancellor of the exchequer under Boris Johnson’s premiership, Sunak lost out to Liz Truss in the race to replace him earlier this summer.
Rishi Sunak has received the backing of more than half of Conservative lawmakers in the race to become the next party leader and prime minister, PA Media reported Monday.
The former Chancellor has received a flurry of public endorsements from high-profile Conservative Party lawmakers in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister
Rishi Sunak will become the first person of color and the first Hindu to become Britain’s Prime Minister. At the age of 42, he is also the youngest person to take the office in more than 200 years.
Sunak was first elected as an MP in 2015 and spent two years on the backbenches, during which Brexit dominated the political agenda. Sunak supported leaving the EU during the 2016 referendum.
He subsequently became a junior minister in Theresa May’s government. It was Boris Johnson who gave Sunak his first major government role when he first appointed him as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2019, and as the Chancellor in 2020.
Sunak won popularity during the early weeks of the pandemic when he unveiled an extensive support plan for those unable to work during lockdown.
But the “Partygate” scandal that took down Boris Johnson also tarnished his reputation, and he became archrivals with Johnson after quitting his government earlier this year.
Sunak has remained tight-lipped on his policy plan in the last few days, but he was widely seen as the more moderate of the two candidates in the last leadership contest over the summer. Compared to Liz Truss, he took a softer line on matters like Brexit and the economy.
Sunak will speak to Conservative MPs at 2:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET).
Penny Mordaunt’s greatest strength and biggest weakness are one and the same: No one really knows who she is.
Being a relatively unknown lawmaker in Britain’s ruling Conservative Party has its advantages. Whereas other members of parliament have struggled to distance themselves from the failure of previous governments, Mordaunt has been able to paint herself as something of an outsider.
But the truth is that Mordaunt, an MP since 2010, held a number of ministerial positions before being elevated to defense secretary in the last, painful few months of Theresa May’s government.
Running on the slogan PM4PM during the Conservative leadership campaign this summer, Mordaunt promised a return to traditional Tory values: Low taxes, a small state, individual responsibility.
It nearly proved a winning ticket. She secured 105 votes from MPs – only eight fewer than Liz Truss, who went on to win – but this wasn’t enough for her to be put before the party members in the final vote.
If Mordaunt had made it to that stage, she might have been expected to perform well. A darling of the Tory grassroots, her military background – she is a Royal Navy reservist – and references to Margaret Thatcher have played well among party members.
In her previous campaign video, Mordaunt recalled watching a naval task force sail from her home town of Portsmouth, where she is now the MP, to the Falklands – the South Atlantic islands that Thatcher went to war with Argentina to reclaim. “It taught me that my country stands up to bullies,” she said.
Mordaunt has been criticized in the past for her ideological flexibility. At the recent Conservative Party conference, she called Truss’ policies “great.” Given the implosion of “Trussonomics,” she will probably have to revise her position on that.
She also revised her thoughts on another contentious issue. When she was minister for women and equalities, Mordaunt took a pro-transgender stance, asserting that “trans men are men, trans women are women.”
But, under pressure from the more socially conservative members of her party, she abandoned this stance during the last leadership election, saying a trans woman could not be considered a “biological woman” like herself.
These vacillations have led some to question whether Mordaunt has an underlying political philosophy – or whether she is merely a savvy politician with her eyes on Number 10.
He won an internal party contest to be the country’s new leader following Truss’ Oct. 20 resignation. Her tenure was the shortest ever for a British prime minister and was marked by economic turmoil. British voters elect a party, not a specific leader, meaning the ruling party has latitude to change a prime minister without calling an election. Because Sunak won the party contest, he automatically becomes prime minister.
Who is Rishi Sunak?
Sunak’s fast rise to the top of politics followed a privileged upbringing and lucrative marriage. Sunak is married to the daughter of the co-founder of Infosys, one of India’s largest technology companies. The couple met while studying at Stanford University. They have an estimated wealth of $1 billion, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, an annual gauge of the 1,000 wealthiest people and families resident in the U.K.
Sunak was born and raised in southern England. His mother was a pharmacist and his father a doctor. Before getting his MBA at Stanford, he attended Oxford University and Winchester College, one of Britain’s most prestigious preparatory schools.
Sunak has spoken often about his Indian roots and being a practicing Hindu. He has said lighting Diwali candles outside No. 11 Downing Street – the office and home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer – when finance minister was one of the proudest moments of his career. Sunak was named prime minister during the Hindu religious festival.
Sunak is a less strident voice compared to Truss on the issue of the Northern Ireland Protocol, legislation agreed with the EU designed to deal with the border between Ireland (part of the EU) and Northern Ireland (part of the U.K.).
U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that if the protocol is not respected it could threaten fragile peace in Northern Ireland.
