Rishi Sunak becomes UK’s new prime minister

The United Kingdom’s former finance minister Rishi Sunak has won the race to replace Prime Minister Liz Truss on Monday.

Sunak triumphed after fellow leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt withdrew after failing to secure the backing of the 100 Conservative Party members of Parliament she needed to remain in the race. It was a benchmark she had to pass by 2 pm on Monday if she was to remain a contender.

After being declared winner of the leadership battle, Sunak was set to address lawmakers in Parliament later on Monday for the first time as national leader.

Mordaunt said as she withdrew: “This decision is an historic one and shows, once again, the diversity and talent of our party. Rishi has my full support.”

If Mordaunt had secured the backing of 100 lawmakers, Conservative Party members of Parliament would have voted for their favorite candidate among Sunak and Mordaunt in a non-binding indicative poll before rank-and-file party members would have selected a winner in an online ballot, with the victor set to be announced on Friday.

But with Mordaunt withdrawing, the battle ended abruptly on Monday afternoon and Sunak will start work immediately.

Earlier, Sunak got a boost when former prime minister Boris Johnson withdrew from the battle, saying it was “simply not the right time” for him to seek reelection and urging his backers to get behind Sunak. The Guardian newspaper said several high-profile Johnson supporters did just that, with former home secretary Priti Patel and Cabinet ministers James Cleverly and Nadhim Zahawi, throwing their weight behind Sunak, who went head-to-head with Truss in the previous leadership battle just weeks ago.

Back then, despite Sunak being popular among lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party, rank-and-file members ultimately chose Truss.

After 44 disastrous days in charge, Truss announced her resignation last week.

Jeremy Hunt, who replaced controversial chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng days before Truss’s resignation, wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the United Kingdom needs financial stability now, above all else.

“To restore stability and confidence, we need a leader who can be trusted to make difficult choices,” he wrote. “We have a leader who can do just that in Rishi Sunak.”

The UK’s main opposition, the Labour Party, was unimpressed, however, with Sunak’s victory and ramped up its call for an imminent general election to be called, so voters can ultimately decide who leads the nation.

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, told the BBC: “The Conservative Party is about to hand Rishi Sunak the keys to the country without him saying a single word about how he would govern. No one voted for this.”

Against the backdrop of the leadership battle, UK government borrowing costs fell on Monday morning and the value of the pound rose slightly, indicating that the financial markets were comfortable with the way things progressed. The interest rate for long-term bonds dropped to 3.9 percent, making government borrowing cheaper, after having risen as high as 5.17 percent in late September.