Conservative politician, Rishi Sunak, has won Tory’s party leadership contest for the race of British Prime Minister.
Sunak was elected Conservative leader after rival, Penny Mordaunt, pulled out of the race, having failed to secure the necessary 100 nominations from her fellow MPs.
“Rishi Sunak is, therefore, elected as leader of the Conservative Party”, senior backbencher, Graham Brady said, as Mordaunt vowed her “full support” for the former finance minister.
Sunak’s win on Monday, came days after Liz Truss’s resignation, following her disastrous tax cuts plans and policy U-turns that plunged the markets into chaos.
Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons and former defence minister, was reportedly backed by 30 MPs compared with nearly 150 supporting Sunak.
Sunak and Mordaunt had lost to Truss in an earlier race to appoint a new leader after then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was forced to announce his resignation in July, following a wave of scandals linked to parties entertained during the coronavirus lockdown.
While there were rumours about Johnson’s comeback over the weekend, he pulled out of the contest on Sunday.
Johnson, though, has claimed he in fact reached the “very high hurdle of 102 nominations”, but has bowed out of the race because it is ‘simply not the right thing to do.’
