Brussels In the race for the leadership of the British Conservative Party, a three-way battle is emerging between ex-Finance Secretary Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Secretary of State for Trade Penny Mordaunt. On Wednesday they took the next hurdle in the party’s internal selection process and are still in the lead.
In the afternoon, 88 MPs of the parliamentary group voted for Sunak, 67 for Mordaunt and 50 for Truss. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, the government legal clerk Suella Braverman and the ex-Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch also remain in the running.
Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and acting Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi left. They missed the hurdle of 30 supporters. This reduces the number of candidates for the party presidency from eight to six.
Eleven applicants originally lined up, but the number is now being gradually reduced in several rounds of voting. The winner will be appointed the new prime minister in early September. Until then, incumbent Boris Johnson will continue to run the business.
So if the trio at the top can maintain their lead, it will either become the third woman to move down Downing Street, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May – or the first person from an ethnic minority. Sunak is the eldest son of an immigrant Indian doctor.
The Conservatives are again faced with a directional decision: the ex-finance minister recommends himself as a representative of economic reason, behind whom the moderate wing of the party can rally. Truss is the frontwoman for the Brexit hardliners, even though she voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum. Mordaunt, on the other hand, represents a new start in terms of personnel and is the big surprise of the race.
The only 42-year-old Sunak is the favorite of the party establishment. He has had a lightning-fast career: seven years ago he moved into parliament and four years ago into the government. He owes the decisive career boost to Premier Johnson.
He brought him into the Ministry of Finance as State Secretary and shortly thereafter appointed him Chancellor of the Exchequer. The fact that Sunak initiated Johnson’s downfall with his resignation last week is now interpreted by his supporters as a betrayal.
Sunak’s résumé reads like that of many prime ministers. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, did an MBA at Stanford and then worked at the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, among others. Thanks to his marriage to the billionaire daughter Akshata Murty, daughter of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murty, he is now the richest politician in Britain.
The British Foreign Secretary is currently in the cabinet and was discussed early on as a possible successor to Johnson.
(Photo: Reuters)
Sunak became known during the corona pandemic when he kept announcing new government aid packages. He was a staunch Brexit supporter from the start, but is considered non-ideological. Should he become prime minister, it is expected that he will resolve the Northern Ireland dispute pragmatically. He wants to avoid a trade war with the EU.
Sunak is also pushing for moderation on the key campaign issue of taxes. While all his rivals are promising big tax cuts, he is sticking to the planned increase in corporate taxes and wants to consolidate the budget first. With government spending amid the pandemic rising to its highest level since World War II, Sunak has been branded a “socialist” by the right wing.
Sunak’s rival Liz Truss, who started out as a pro-European, has been railing against the EU for several years with the zeal of the converted Brexit supporter. As Foreign Secretary, she is largely responsible for the recent escalation of the Northern Ireland dispute. She represents libertarian economic views and presents herself as Margaret Thatcher’s heiress. She promises tax cuts “from day one”. You have to break with the cautious budgetary policy and implement “real reforms”.
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Truss has ten years of government experience under three different Prime Ministers: before her current job, she was Minister for the Environment, Justice and Trade, among others. As Trade Minister, she signed the first post-Brexit free trade agreements, one of the few visible benefits of leaving the EU.
Like Sunak, the 46-year-old studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, the major that has produced most prime ministers. She remained loyal to Johnson to the end and is now supported by his followers.
While Sunak and Truss have been favorites to succeed Johnson for months, the rise of Commerce Secretary Penny Mordaunt wasn’t predicted by everyone. She now has the second highest number of supporters in the faction and leads polls among party members.
The trade minister has also run for the post of prime minister.
(Photo: Reuters)
The 49-year-old was the first woman to head the Department of Defense, albeit for less than three months. In the election campaign, she can score points with her military background: she grew up as the daughter of a paratrooper in a household of soldiers, is herself a reservist in the Royal Navy and represents the constituency of Portsmouth, the home port of the British fleet.
Mordaunt has the advantage over Sunak and Truss of not having played a central role in the Johnson administration. So she can now credibly promise a new beginning. At the same time, she courts Johnson’s supporters. “I am very different from Boris Johnson, but we have the same program and we believe in the same things,” she said at the start of her campaign on Wednesday.
In particular, she could pose a threat to Truss and, as a representative of the Brexit camp, move into the final against Sunak. The ex-finance minister is the clear favorite in the group. MPs are expected to put him in the final two candidates who have to face the party’s grassroots for the final vote no matter what.
The big question is whether Sunak can win there too. In polls of party members, both Truss and Mordaunt fare significantly better when compared directly to Sunak.
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