Rishi Sunak to Become New UK Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak will become British prime minister on Monday after other candidates quit the race to lead the Conservative Party, leaving him with the task of steering a deeply divided country through an economic downturn set to leave millions of people poorer.

Sunak on Monday clinched the race after his main opponent, Penny Mordaunt, failed to receive the backing of 100 Conservative MPs before 2 pm BST.

As she withdrew from the contest, Mordaunt issued a statement on Twitter, expressing full support for Sunak and calling upon the Conservatives to rally behind the new PM. “We all owe it to the country, to each other, and to Rishi to unite and work together for the good of the nation. There’s much work to be done,” she wrote.

Former UK PM Boris Johnson, who claimed to have enough support for a comeback to 10 Downing Street, announced he was pulling out of the leadership race on Sunday. “This would simply not be the right thing to do,” Johnson said in a statement.

Sunak, one of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster, will be asked to form a government by the British king, replacing Liz Truss, the outgoing leader who only lasted 44 days in the job.

Sunak, the 42-year-old former finance minister, becomes Britain's third prime minister in less than two months, tasked with restoring stability to a country reeling from years of political and economic turmoil.

The multi-millionaire former hedge fund boss would be expected to launch deep spending cuts to try to rebuild Britain's fiscal reputation, just as the country slides into a recession, dragged down by the surging cost of energy and food.

Britain has been locked in a state of perma-crisis ever since it voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, unleashing a battle at Westminster over the future of the country that remains unresolved to this day.

Truss resigned as prime minister on October 20 after the mini-budget put forward by her cabinet, in an attempt to alleviate soaring inflation and the energy crisis, failed and sent the markets into turmoil. She spent only six weeks in office, becoming the shortest-serving PM in the nation’s history.

Sunak, a 42-year-old of Indian descent, was Truss’ rival in the race to replace Johnson in office, but did not succeed the first time around. He previously held the positions of chief secretary to the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer.

Johnson, who served as prime minister from 2019 to 2022, was forced to step down in early September, following a series of scandals and a wave of resignations in his cabinet.