Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss to become Britain’s next prime minister

London: British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has sensationally staged a late comeback in the contest to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, winning the second most votes from Tory MPs and earning the right to run against former chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 backbench committee, announced that of the 357 votes cast, 137 backed Sunak and 113 were for Truss. Penny Mordaunt received 105 votes and was eliminated from the race. There were two spoiled ballots.

Rishi Sunak will face off against Liz Truss in the battle to replace Boris Johnson as Britain’s prime minister.Credit: Getty Images

Truss tweeted just minutes after the result was announced, saying she was “ready to hit the ground from day one”.

In a video, Sunak said: “Wow, thank you so much everyone for your support, I’m so humbled by it. I won’t let you down.”

He claimed he was the only candidate who could beat Labour leader Keir Starmer at the next election.

Mordaunt bowed out gracefully and said in a tweet: “Thanks everyone for all your hard work.”

“We go forward together.”

Also bowing out was Johnson, who fronted his last Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons and ended the showing with “hasta la vista, baby”.

Labour MPs and Theresa May, his predecessor, refused to applaud him.

The prime ministership will now be decided by about 160,000 Tory members in a vote that will end on September 5 with the Conservatives producing either Britain’s third woman prime minister or the UK’s first non-white leader.

Sunak, a former hedge-funder and multimillionaire in his own right and married to the daughter of an Indian billionaire, has been the frontrunner throughout the contest.

But he is the target of the deposed prime minister and his supporters, who believe Sunak contributed to Johnson’s demise by plotting a leadership campaign for months.

Sunak and former health secretary Sajid Javid quit Johnson’s cabinet on July 5. Three days later Sunak launched his leadership bid with a slick video that set out his family background and he promised to be upfront with the public about the challenges ahead.

He hit out at candidates who would tell the public “comforting fairytales” by pretending that tax cuts could be delivered while the budget deficit was forecast to be £128 billion ($228 billion), equivalent to 5.4 per cent of the UK’s GDP.

Penny Mordaunt was eliminated in Wednesday’s vote, leaving Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss in the running to be the next Conservative Party leader.Credit: Getty

Hours before the result was announced, inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.4 per cent, underlining that the cost of living would be the central issue in the contest.

Sunak voted “Leave” during Brexit but is backed by Tory centrists and moderates, many of whom voted for “Remain”. He became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the furlough scheme and the “Eat out to Help Out” campaign aimed at stimulating the hospitality industry.

Truss, a one-time Liberal Democrat, campaigned for “Remain” during the EU referendum but has refashioned her image as a low-taxing Conservative Brexiteer.

She is backed by huge parts of the right who backed Brexit and is believed to have the unofficial backing of Johnson.

This is because she is promising to take a tougher stance on China, cut taxes and possibly shake up the Bank of England, believing that it loosened monetary policy too much and for too long, contributing to inflation.

Having served in the cabinet under David Cameron, Theresa May and Johnson, Truss is also running on a record of having delivered trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand and rollover deals with numerous other countries after Brexit.

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