Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Penny Mourdant leading contenders to replace Liz Truss as British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson and his ex-chancellor Rishi Sunak are favoured to face off in an explosive Conservative party race to become the next British PM.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson and his ex-chancellor Rishi Sunak are favoured to face off in an explosive Conservative party race to become the next British prime minister after Liz Truss announced her resignation 44 days into the job.
In what has been billed as “a battle for the soul of the party’’, the fresh leadership battle will be shortened to a week and involve contenders securing at least 100 MP backers to stand, under rules hastily being drawn up by the Tory party committee.
Ms Truss, Britain’s shortest serving prime minister, announced outside Downing Street on Thursday afternoon: “I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party.”
Mr Johnson, forced to resign three months ago following a walkout of Cabinet ministers, has been on a speaking tour and holiday in the Caribbean but is taking the temperature of other MPs to stand. He is due back into London over the weekend.
Mr Sunak, the billionaire banker who was beaten by Ms Truss in the last leadership race, is hoping his forewarnings of the economic earthquake that would be unleashed by Ms Truss’s plans – before it came to fruition – will convince the party it needs an economic literate to take control.
Penny Mourdant, another recent candidate and the current Commons leader, is also considered to have some backers. Her PM4PM campaign was reignited on Thursday just hours after Ms Truss resigned.
Candidates will have to nominate by Monday, and if there is only one there will be an immediate coronation. If there are two or three candidates – for there are 357 MPs – the names will be put to the Tory members for an electronic ballot with the result announced by next Friday.
The Conservative Party is deeply concerned at current polling showing Labour has a 36-point lead after months of an indulgent leadership campaign and then an economic earthquake provoked by Ms Truss’s low tax, high growth mini-budget.
Health minister Robert Jenrick warned on Thursday that the Tory party faced extinction if it made the wrong decision.
He told The News Agents podcast: “This isn’t an ordinary leadership contest. It’s more extraordinary than the one we had in the summer.
“If we get this wrong, the country will face a very serious period of further instability and the Conservative Party will lose the next general election, potentially cease to exist.”
Another poll by YouGov said 79 per cent of the public agreed Ms Truss was right to resign.
Labour, the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats clamoured for an immediate general election.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the Tories were simply astonishing.
“They cannot respond to their latest shambles by yet again simply clicking their fingers and shuffling the people at the top without the consent of the British people,” he said.
“After 12 years of Tory failure, the British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos. We need a general election now.”
Surprisingly, that view was even mirrored by a Tory MP, despite an almost certain wipe-out if a general election was called before the 2024 timetable.
Sir Christopher Chope said the party was ungovernable. He told the UK Telegraph: “Why should one group of Tory MPs think they should hijack a Prime Minister with whom they disagree? This is the second time it has happened this year. The prospect is that any new Prime Minister would be similarly ambushed, undermined and humiliated.”
"I don't see now, that there's any reasonable response we can make other than to call an immediate general election"
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) October 20, 2022
The Conservative Parliamentary Party has proved itself 'ungovernable', says Conservative MP Christopher Chope as he calls for a general election on #TimesRadiopic.twitter.com/G0h8rpcTVA
All day Thursday, various MPs gathered in the central lobby of Westminster talking to broadcasters about their preferred candidates, although the overriding topic was whether Mr Johnson would stand.
Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith told Sky: ‘We need someone who can come in, we need somebody who can bring people together, somebody who actually has got that mandate.
‘So a mandate from people in the last general election, a mandate from party members and somebody actually who can get this party going again, get us winning elections again.
“The only person that I think that ticks all those boxes is Boris Johnson.”
But senior party figures cautioned about returning to Mr Johnson because he still faces a parliamentary probe into his behaviour.
“We need to remember that Mr Johnson is still under investigation by the Privileges Committee for potentially misleading the House,” Sir Roger Gale said.
“Until that investigation is complete and he is found guilty or cleared, there should be no possibility of him returning to government.”
Former prime minister Theresa May tweeted that Tory MPs must compromise to ensure there is a sensible, competent government.
Ms Truss said in her short resignation speech that the country has been held back for too long by low economic growth, but blamed the war in Ukraine, energy prices and international uncertainty.
But in just six weeks she crashed the economy and lost two key ministers, the chancellor of the exchequer and the Home Secretary.
It had become patently clear that Ms Truss was tin-eared to the political realities of trying to bring the warring Tory factions together, and the economic realities of her bold plans.
After a week of high drama, which coalesced in chaotic scenes in the lobby on Wednesday night during a vote on fracking where her chief whip and deputy whip resigned, and then un-resigned, Ms Truss’s fingertip control of the party was completely lost.
She had signalled the end of her leadership last month when she rushed into slashing taxes while also committing to open-ended government support for sky high household energy bills. Those moves rocked the financial markets, leading to high costs of borrowing, a brief shutdown of the mortgage market and a plummeting pound.
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