March 28, 2024

UK: Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss fight after Johnson

UK: Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss fight after Johnson

Abroad Second election in Great Britain

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are running for Premier Johnson

“Chunak was at the forefront of the division, but Liz Truss was more popular at grassroots level.”

Former Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are running to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the UK election. This has now been announced by the Conservative Tory Party. Our Great Britain Correspondent Stephanie Bolt explains how things are going from now on.

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The candidates for the second Tory election have been decided: former finance minister Rishi Sunak and foreign minister Liz Truss are in the final round – now party members decide. Who will go to Downing Street?

DFormer Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will succeed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The two politicians won the majority of votes in a Conservative parliamentary caucus vote on Wednesday, as accountability committee chairman Graham Brady announced.

Business Secretary Benny Mordant received the fewest votes, leaving just eight votes short of Truss. Now members of the Tory party are deciding on a run. On September 5, Downing Street will decide who will succeed Johnson.

The referendum was necessitated by the resignation of incumbent Johnson as party leader two weeks ago under massive pressure from the parliamentary caucus.

Read on

In all the voting rounds of the Parliamentary Committee, the largest number of MPs voted for Sunak. However, the 42-year-old, who appeals to the party’s core, is controversial at home. After all, the right-wing conservative faction around Truss blames Sunak for the biggest tax hikes in recent decades.

Johnson, the current prime minister, is also considered a dissident: the former Chancellor of the Exchequer has been accused by those around him of betraying the head of government by instigating Johnson’s resignation. Sunak rejects this. The results of a survey of Tory members by polling firm YouGov on Tuesday also brought bad news for him. Accordingly, he must lose the race.

Now party members decide

Secretary of State Truss was considered one of the favorites from the start. However, he always finished third in first-round elections, behind Mordant, the former secretary of state for foreign aid and defense, long considered a darling of the party base. He made a name for himself as a staunch advocate of Brexit and received much approval from the party base. Nevertheless, Mordant was a thorn in the side of the Tories on the right, whom he accused of overly liberal views on gender issues and a lack of cabinet experience.

As the only remaining representative of the right, Truss, 46, managed to convince many MPs who had previously voted for former secretary of state Kemi Patenock, a right-wing conservative.

Now the party members have got the position. However, it is unclear how many there are currently. In the last party leadership election in 2019, when Boris Johnson won, there were around 160,000 members. Early next week, the BBC wants to broadcast a TV fight between the two finalists, which the candidates have already agreed to.

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