The UK will find out on Monday whether Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss will take over as party leader and prime minister. Truss is expected to win. Boris Johnson’s short but tumultuous tenure as prime minister ended after he voluntarily resigned following one too many crises, even for a man once touted as “coated in Teflon”. In the weeks that followed, various members of his party and cabinet threw their hats in the ring or dropped out. The months-long race to win the party’s top seat – and one of the most powerful positions on the planet – has finally ended in a party-wide vote. Any paid party member, including those living abroad, had to submit a ballot on September 2 to have a say in which of the two remaining candidates would succeed Johnson. The chairman of the 1922 committee, made up of Conservative Party supporters, will announce the result of the vote on Monday. QUEEN ELIZABETH TO APPOINT BRITAIN’S PRIME MINISTER AT BALMORAL, NOT BUCKINGHAM PALACE, AMID UNCERTAIN MOBILITY
THE LEADERSHIP STRUGGLE
Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Company, told Fox News Digital that there was “no question” Truss would win and that a Sunak win would be “nothing short of a miracle.” “I think when he came to the party, that was evident very early on [Sunak] was not the favourite, simply because the language that Liz Truss spoke speaks more to where the Conservative Party wants to be,” Mendoza explained. “I think there’s been a backlash against, for example, the big spending and, you know, high taxation of the Boris Johnson government.” Conservative leadership candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak stand together as they attend a runaway event, part of the Conservative Party leadership campaign, in London on August 31, 2022. (Reuters/Hannah McKay/File Photo) From the most diverse group of candidates for a party leadership vote in British history emerged Sunack, the 42-year-old former chief secretary to the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Truss, the 47-year-old secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs. Sunak led the charge to oust Johnson when he and Sajid Javid, the former secretary of state for health and social care, resigned almost simultaneously. He did so in response to Johnson defending his decision to appoint Tory MP Chris Pincher as deputy leader, despite Johnson later admitting he was aware of sexual abuse allegations against the minister. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: WHEN MARGARET THATCHER AND MICHAEL GORBATCHIF REUNITED TO HONOR RONALD REAGAN Truss was at odds with Sunak and continued to support Johnson until he announced that he would resign as Prime Minister.
TROUS V. SUNAK
Each minister took a different tactic to try to convince the party that he had the vision for the country’s future. Ms Sunak focused on kicking up inflation in the UK, while Mr Truss promised to cut taxes once in office. Sunak also focused on restoring “confidence” in leadership after Johnson’s many scandals. Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss speaks as she is interviewed by British radio presenter Nick Ferrari during a stalking event, part of the Conservative Party leadership campaign, in London, August 31, 2022. (Reuters/Hannah McKay) But Truss’ faith in Johnson, as well as her fiscal approach to dealing with mounting economic difficulties, appears to have paid dividends. Sunak’s early and commanding lead evaporated, leaving Truss in first place, according to most analysts. “What Liz Truss is saying is, even though it was a foreign faction, she’s saying, look, give me a chance and I’ll cut taxes and give you more freedom, and I think that’s a message that was very popular with the grassroots of the party,” Mendoza argued. THOUSANDS WANT BORIS JOHNSON TO STAY IN POWER, BUT PARTY BRANCH WON’T BITE
PARTY VOTING
Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, noted that Sunak’s lead in the first round of voting came from members of parliament, while the final round includes the party’s wider membership of around 200,000, which would skew more towards the hardest of the Truss. linear approach. “I think you can see that the party members, the base of the Conservative Party, are very much to the right of the parliamentary party as a whole, and Liz Truss has run for Thatcherism,” Gardiner told Fox News Digital. “The vast majority of Conservative Party members are on the right and have overwhelmingly supported Liz Truss, according to the poll. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, centre, listens as Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at the weekly cabinet meeting at Downing Street, May 17, 2022, in London. (Henry Nicholls-WPA Pool/Getty Images) “Rishi Sunak is certainly at the heart of the Conservative Party, he is not a Thatcherite politician.” Members were able to vote by mail or, for the first time, vote online. The UK’s intelligence arm of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) delayed an earlier vote scheduled for early August due to concerns about electoral system hacking – a concern that many cyber security experts continued to raise until the deadline, according to with The Guardian newspaper. “We don’t have the technology to conduct voting securely on the Internet, and therefore it should not be used for high-risk elections,” Peter Ryan, a professor of applied security at the University of Luxembourg, told the Wall Street Journal. “And I count that as pretty high stakes… At the moment, short of a major conceptual breakthrough, I don’t see how it can be done.” THIS DAY IN HISTORY, SEPT. 2, 1945, WWII ENDS AS JAPAN OFFICIALLY SURRENDER TO US ALLIES
ASSUMING AUTHORITY
Once the party announces the winner, the change should happen quickly. Johnson will officially step down on Tuesday morning and the new party leader will take over – with a slight twist. “For the first time in her reign, Her Majesty will not be in London or Windsor to invest the new prime minister but in Scotland,” Mendoza noted, highlighting mobility concerns as the 96-year-old monarch vacations at Balmoral. “Then the winner must also go to Scotland to be sworn in. And then they immediately have to get to work, obviously, with the selection of a cabinet and then lower cabinet grades.” Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Boris Johnson during an audience at Buckingham Palace where she will formally recognize him as the new prime minister in London July 24, 2019. (Victoria Jones/Pool via Reuters) Cabinet turnover remains a mystery, although some select ministers, including Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, should remain in their posts to provide some sense of continuity. Gardiner suggested that up to 80% of cabinet posts could be filled by members. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP However, analysts expect the new government to take office on Wednesday with all positions filled. “What we understand is that there will be a cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning and a big speech,” Mendoza said. Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.
