Britain could learn identity of new PM as early as Monday
The bookmakers are banking on a two-horse race between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak
WITH Liz Truss out of Downing Street after just 45 days in office, the UK is now set to have its fifth prime minister in the last six years - and the identity of the new leader could be known as soon as Monday (Oct 24).
It’s a remarkable and embarrassing time for British politics at the moment, and the surreality of it all is that Truss’ predecessor, Boris Johnson, intends to throw his name into the hat for the Conservative Party’s leadership race, and become prime minister for a second time.
The rules for the coming leadership election are a bit different this time. The nominations are already open and are set to close on Monday afternoon (9 pm, Singapore time). To make the cut as a candidate, a person must have the backing of at least 100 Conservative members of parliament - much higher than the last contest when just 20 nominations were required.
If there is only one person to get to the 100 mark, he or she will become the next party leader, and by default the new prime minister. However, if there is more than one candidate with the minimum number of nominations, this will trigger a ballot of Conservative MPs later on Monday. The winner will be declared no later than Oct 28.
British minister Penny Mordaunt on Friday (Oct 21) launched her bid to replace Truss as prime minister, becoming the first Conservative lawmaker to do so.
The 49-year-old performed exceptionally well last Tuesday when she took Truss’ place to answer Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament.
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The British bookmakers, though, are saying that it is likely to be a two-horse race between Johnson and his former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak. The latter, of course, lost to Truss at the last leadership election in August.
The 58-year-old Johnson, who is currently on holiday in the Caribbean and will be back in the UK this weekend, already has 29 MPs who are openly supporting him. The 42-year-old Sunak is not far behind with 27 supporters as of press time. What’s clear is that MPs will likely put their principles aside and vote for the candidate who is more likely to improve the party’s reputation in the polls, and give the Conservatives a fighting, if unlikely, chance of winning the next general election that is due by January 2025.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and other opposition MPs have been lobbying for fresh polls to be called as soon as possible. The current average of polls places Labour at 29 points ahead of the Conservatives, which would effectively be a wipeout of a sizeable number of Tory seats. As one vulnerable Conservative MP admitted: “Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas”.
Whoever becomes the UK’s next leader will have to deal with an economy that is in a critical state. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt’s austerity moves of higher taxes and spending cuts are likely to aggravate the business downturn, economists say.
Latest inflation returns were a whopping 10.1 per cent, with a 14 per cent rise in food prices. In September, borrowing reached £20 billion (S$31.8 billion), £5 billion higher than expected. Interest payments on borrowing rose from £5.2 billion in September last year to £7.7 billion last month — a rise of 48 per cent. Local media reports in the UK say that Johnson has approached Sunak to “get back together”, despite previous claims that Johnson ran an “Anyone but Rishi” campaign when Sunak ran for the party leadership against Truss. Supporters of Sunak, meanwhile, say that he is keen to reconcile with Johnson, even though many maintain that Johnson cannot be trusted with the public’s finances under the current difficult circumstances.
Tim Bale, a professor of politics at the University of London, told AFP that he does not think MPs will want to go back and pick the same person (Johnson) that they dumped out of Downing Street only a few months ago. “Two-thirds of voters wanted him to resign. It’s a fantasy land to think that voters want him back,” he said.
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