Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss are all closing in on the chance to become Britain’s prime minister
Conservative MPs wrapped up a fourth round of voting in the party’s leadership contest on Tuesday. Kemi Badenoch (ex-minister for equality) was eliminated. Rishi Sunak (ex-Chancellor) is now leading the race to succeed Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Penny Mordaunt is Trade Minister and Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary.
Sunak received 118 votes in the fourth round, which was one less than the automatic selection for the Tory Party leadership contest. Truss received 86 votes and Mordaunt 92. Badenoch was the lowest-scoring contestant with 59 votes and was thus disqualified.
The party’s 357 MPs will hold a final ballot on Wednesday, after which its 150,000 or so members nationwide will take part in a postal vote to choose a final winner. Johnson received a confidence vote Monday, which ensured that Johnson will continue in office.
Badenoch, a vocal opponent of Brexit was an avid Brexiteer. “woke” culture. Throughout her campaign she called her opposition members of the “liberal wing of the Conservative Party.”
Sunak leads these rivals, who is positioned as a voice for fiscal prudence. Sunak also promises tax cuts but has not yet stated his intention to do so. Mordaunt and Truss have both promised to lower taxes, and both have been singled out for criticism by the party’s grassroots members: Truss for her opposition to the 2016 vote to leave the European Union and Mordaunt for her “woke”Views, which include her now-retracted insistence that “trans women are women.”
The three main candidates all support arming Ukraine. Truss has emerged in the last months to be one of Europe’s loudest anti-Russian voices. A newspaper opinion piece recently published by the foreign secretary committed to inflict “real pain on Putin and the Kremlin” if elected, and declared on Tuesday morning that she would hike the UK’s defense spending to 3% of GDP, far beyond the 2% demanded by NATO.
Mordaunt served as defense secretary for a brief time in 2019 and said that although she wanted to increase military spending, she wouldn’t do so. “plucking figures out of the air”During the contest for leadership.
A YouGov survey found that he received more support from Tory MPs then his opponents, pollSunak was shown losing the final vote to Truss and Mordaunt on Tuesday. The latter had not yet been eliminated when the poll took place. Ladbrokes, the UK’s largest bookmaker, currently ratesTruss will be the favourite to win this overall contest.
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