Sunak to become next Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak will become the fifth-consecutive Conservative Prime Minister in just over six years after leadership rival Penny Mordaunt withdrew, minutes before the deadline to secure enough nominations to go forward to a vote of the party membership.
Shortly after, 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady confirmed there had been only one valid nomination put forward by the 2pm deadline.
In a statement released at 1.58pm, Mordaunt said: “These are unprecedented times. Despite the compressed timetable for the leadership contest it is clear that colleagues feel we need certainty today. They have taken this decision in good faith for the good of the country.”
Last night former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had pulled out of the race, having never publically entering it, despite claiming he had sufficient support to achieve the threshold of 100 nominations of Conservative MPs.
Sunak will enter Number 10 just seven weeks after losing the leadership contest to Liz Truss with economic and political conditions now much more precarious than they had been in the summer.
His resignation as Chancellor in July was a key moment in the collapse of Johnson’s Government, but it was also seen as a factor in his failure to secure the support of Conservative Party members in the leadership election won by Liz Truss.
Truss resigned on only the 45th day in Number 10, and will become the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history when she formally departs office.
Sunak will create some records of his own, becoming the first British Asian Prime Minister, the first to represent a Yorkshire constituency, and the youngest Prime Minister in more than 200 years.
He has little more than two years before a general election must be called and inherits a basket of problems, including the cost of living crisis, the ongoing impact of Brexit, and leading a divided and exhausted party.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who is expected to stay at Number 11, is scheduled to deliver a major financial statement next Monday as part of the attempts to repair the damage caused by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget.
Sunak has been very quiet since Liz Truss become Prime Minister and he avoided the Conservative Party Conference last month. He has only tweeted twice in six weeks – to confirm he was standing to become leader again and to acknowledge the announcement by Johnson last night that he was ending his leadership bid.
His Cabinet appointments are expected to attempt to unite the party and should see a number of changes from Truss’s short-lived line-up.
Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has already confirmed he won’t serve in a Sunak Cabinet, which means there will be a seventh Business Secretary in seven years.
