All candidates had to win initial support from at least 20 fellow Tory MPs to advance to the first round of voting on Wednesday. In order to reduce the number of candidates to just two, more votes will now be held – starting on Wednesday – with the 358 Conservative MPs asked to choose their favorite candidate to lead the party. Any candidate receiving less than 30 votes from his/her fellow MPs will be disqualified in the first round of voting. Then, in the second round, the candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated. These rounds of voting continue until there are two candidates left, which is expected to happen by the end of this week. When two candidates remain, all members of the Conservative Party (around 200,000 people) are asked to vote by postal ballot for their favorite candidate. The winner is expected to be announced on September 5th. Rishi Sunak makes a speech to launch his bid to become leader of the Conservative Party on July 12, 2022 in London, England. The former chancellor was the second senior minister to resign from Boris Johnson’s cabinet last week, setting in motion the events that saw Johnson resign from the leadership of the Conservative Party. Carl Court | News Getty Images | Getty Images The eight candidates include familiar faces such as former finance minister Rishi Sunak — one of the favorites to win — and foreign secretary Liz Truss and new finance minister Nadhim Zahawi, as well as less high-profile figures such as Tom Tugendhat. Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch. Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt is also in the running, as is Penny Mordaunt, the international trade secretary, another favorite popular with grassroots party campaigners. Sajid Javid, the former health secretary, withdrew from the leadership race on Tuesday. Showing some division between Tory MPs and those among the more grassroots members and activists of the Conservative Party, Penny Mordaunt, the former defense secretary, came out on top in a poll of Tory party members this week on who should be the next leader, with 20% of the vote. Former local government minister Kemi Badenoch emerged with 19% of the vote, followed by Rishi Sunak on 12%, according to the poll of more than 800 Tory party members on Tuesday by the Conservative Home website. “If Putin succeeds, there will be untold further misery across Europe and dire consequences across the world,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said. Mateusz Wlodarczyk | Nurphoto | Getty Images On Tuesday night, the eight candidates had 12 minutes each to try to convince their fellow MPs why they should be the next leader of the party and the country. Several have promised to cut taxes and unite the party after the spectacular fall of Boris Johnson, who remains prime minister but only in a caretaker role while his replacement is found. Summarizing the financial implications of candidates expected to advance to at least one runoff, Daiwa Capital Markets said that “at the time of writing, former chancellor Rishi Sunak looked unlikely to make it to the runoff. he is very likely to face a challenger from the populist right wing – possibly Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or Trade Secretary Penny Mordant.’ “While Sunak has argued against any further short-term easing of fiscal policy, Truss, Mordaunt and several others have advocated unfunded tax cuts, which would arguably be inflationary and likely lead to more monetary tightening than would otherwise be the case in the case of a Sunak. prime ministership,” Daiwa said in a note on Tuesday.
Tail open race
The leadership showdown comes after Johnson stepped down as party leader last week following months of controversy over his behavior while in office. His government has been plagued by partying scandals during the Covid-19 lockdowns and several party officials have been hit with complaints. The final straw for many MPs who had previously supported Johnson, despite his less conventional leadership style, was the appointment of the deputy chief whip (responsible for party discipline) who had previous allegations of sexual harassment against him, which were known to Johnson. This led to a wave of resignations with ministers and officials saying Johnson no longer had their confidence. Describing Johnson’s departure as a ‘Bjexit’, Ian Bremmer, chairman of the Eurasia Group, commented this week that ‘UK politics has been virtually paralyzed by a lack of mandate from the caretaker government (whether under Johnson or new interim prime minister.” and that economic, foreign and defense policy are “essentially at a standstill until there is new leadership in the fall.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson makes a statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, July 7, 2022. Henry Nicholls | Reuters “It’s an open race for the fall … but either way, Johnson’s two most important foreign policy initiatives — on Europe and Ukraine — aren’t going to change. From the first, with Brexit and Euroscepticism already in place for the Conservative Party, there is no way for a softer European policy, even on the contentious issue of Northern Ireland, between the prime ministerial rivals,” Bremer noted. on Monday. European leaders, particularly French President Emmanuel Macron, are happy to see Johnson’s back and will have less dysfunctional personal diplomacy with his successor, but the overall UK-EU relationship will remain significantly strained, Bremer added. “That leaves a lot of uncertainty at home – about fiscal easing and corporate tax policy for example. But I don’t see fireworks about who’s leading the UK driving much drama outside of old Blighty.”
