Rishi Sunak, the son-in-law of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, has officially put on his hat to join the race to succeed Liz Truss as leader of the Conservative Party and the UK’s next Prime Minister.
According to media reports, Sunak had 131 to 153 MPs so far, while Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson had 56 to 76 and Penny Mordaunt 22 to 28. Only candidates with nominations of 100 or more MPs will participate in the vote. first vote. The deadline is Monday at 18:30 IST. If Sunak is the only one to cross this threshold, he will automatically become Prime Minister of the UK on Diwali.
On Sunday, the odds checker had the fashionable favorite for the next Conservative leader. Announcing that he was in the running, Sunak said Britain was facing a deepening economic crisis. “I want to fix my economy, unite my party and work for my country. There will be honesty, professionalism and accountability at all levels of government led by me,” he wrote in a statement.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace suggested the three candidates should form a triple government to avoid political conflict at a time when the risks to Britain’s national security were too high. But Sunak’s aides told him they had the numbers, so they didn’t need to make a deal with Johnson after the two met Saturday night.
Johnson is said to have phoned on Sunday urging Conservative lawmakers to support him and even drop the fad.
Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC’s ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ program that Johnson had the required 100 names and that he would “clearly come forward”, that the nominees “didn’t have to go public”. “.
But Johnson suffered a major setback when former Goa Home Minister Suella Braverman announced her support for Sunak.
Braverman wrote in the Telegraph: “We need a prime minister who can command the support of the Conservative family at large.” Johnson was the right leader “at the right time,” she wrote. “But it would be naive to look at those days sentimentally. We need to provide leadership, stability and confidence to the British people. We cannot afford narrow or patriotic fantasies.”
International Trade Secretary Cami Badenoch also backs Sunak, while Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Duchy of Lancaster Chancellor Nadim Xawi back Johnson. “When I was chancellor, I saw a preview of what Boris 2.0 would look like. He was humble and honest about his mistakes. He learned from those mistakes how he could be number 10 and run the country better,” Jahavi said. he tweeted.
Cabinet ministers of Indian origin in the Johnson government, Alok Sharma, Priti Patel and Shailesh Vara, have announced that they are supporting Johnson.
MP Steve Baker told Sky News there will be a vote in the House of Commons on the Privileges Committee’s recommendations after an investigation into whether Johnson misled the House on Partygate. “At that point, his term as prime minister will be over and this country cannot afford to come back here in a few months,” he said. But Nadine Dorries, an aide to Johnson, said the privilege committee’s focus “would go right to Rishi Sunak and what he knew. With Rishi we would be in the general election in a few weeks,” she said.
Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said “Sunak cannot be trusted to lead our country through this cost-of-living crisis,” adding “he was the chancellor who cut taxes on working families.