As additional Cabinet heavy hitters backed Rishi Sunak today, Liz Truss pleaded with the Tory right to unite behind her to challenge him.
This served to highlight Sunak’s prominence as the front-runner for the Tory leadership.
With voting set to begin tomorrow, prospective PMs have just hours remaining to collect the 20 nominations necessary to appear in the competition’s first round.
Mr. Sunak officially launched his candidacy this morning, with Grant Shapps and deputy PM Dominic Raab serving as his introducers.
He already appears to be well above the threshold.
We need to have a grown-up discourse, the former chancellor said, dismissing requests for tax cuts before inflation is under control.
He also praised Boris Johnson at the Westminster event, calling him “one of the most wonderful people I have ever met” with a “good heart”—but that it was “not working” any longer.
Mr. Sunak claimed that his strategy will “address inflation, expand the economy, and slash taxes.”
I want to speak with you in a mature manner so that I can be honest with you, he said.
We need a leader who can win, and Mr. Raab is the only one who can, he stated before the speech.
Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat also appear to have achieved the nominations mark, but Ms. Truss has gone above and beyond after receiving support from Boris Johnson allies Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who swore allegiance on the steps of Downing Street.
Other well-known figures, though, are having difficulty; Jeremy Hunt, Nadhim Zahawi, and Priti Patel all lack official supporters.
The 1922 committee’s powerful chair, Sir Graham Brady, has announced that nominations will end at 6 p.m. today and that voting will begin at 1.30 p.m. tomorrow.
To advance to the second round on Thursday, even candidates who qualify for the first ballot will need 30 MPs out of the 358 total to support them.
Each ballot will see at least one candidate eliminated until just two are left. When then, party members will vote on them via mail after hustings are held all around the UK in August.
On September 5, the new leader will be formally installed as PM.
Other turns in the current struggle over the Conservative Party’s identity include:
Ms. Mordaunt came out on top in an activist poll conducted on the ConservativeHome website.
Despite not being scientific, MPs and ministries constantly monitor the survey;
Despite indications that the votes on the party’s right are being divided, Ms. Patel is anticipated to move forward with a leadership bid;
Mr. Zahawi has stated he has obtained the 20 nominations necessary to qualify for the vote, while allies claim he has obtained more than 30;
According to a Tory member poll conducted by Opinium for Channel 4 News, Mr. Sunak would defeat both Ms. Truss and Ms. Mordaunt in a run-off;
Tory grandees have issued a warning that a tax cut bidding war between candidates might jeopardize the party’s standing in economic management;
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has echoed Jeremy Hunt’s request for increased defense expenditure from 2% to 3% of GDP, while Keir Starmer is pressing for a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson’s administration to take place in Parliament tomorrow.
Following Sir Graham Brady’s announcement of the times, candidates for the Conservative Party leadership were spotted last night at a 1922 Committee summer reception.
On the Terrace of the Houses of Parliament, Ms. Truss, Mr. Sunak, Ms. Patel, former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, and Mr. Tugendhat, head of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, sipped wine and spoke.
Former Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi, and Vice Chair of the 1922 Committee Nus Ghani were also present at the drinks function.
Ms. Truss has warned the Tory Right that if it does not unify behind her, it runs the risk of giving Rishi Sunak the keys to No. 10.
Allies of the foreign secretary pushed her opponents on the party’s Thatcherite side to drop their campaigns and support her.
The emotional appeal came as Priti Patel was about to enter a crowded field of Tory Right contenders.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, meanwhile, has ruled himself out and would instead support Ms. Truss because he does not want to “further split the Right.”
Leader of the opposition Steve Baker has warned Brexit supporters of the “severe danger of division.”
Penny Mordaunt, who has drawn criticism for her stance on trans rights, was named as the new favorite by the grassroots of the Tory party last night.
The unexpected outcome increases the likelihood that she will face Mr. Sunak in the party members’ final run-off vote.
Mr. Zahawi stated that he thinks he has enough votes to be included on the ballot.
We have, he said to BBC Breakfast. And later today, we will submit our nomination.
“I am confident that my colleagues will support me.”
Mr. Zahawi poked fun at Mr. Sunak by asserting that “reducing taxes isn’t a fairytale.”
Chancellor Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England criticized Mr. Zahawi for making tax-related promises while in office, but Mr. Zahawi dismissed his criticism.
I’m setting my stall as prime minister, and I have thoroughly costed these plans.
I’ll be announcing more about how we’ll pay for that in the coming days, he said to BBC Breakfast.
He promised to change education to provide students “the tools they need to succeed in life” in a leadership campaign video.
It is obvious that we need to raise our defense budget in light of Russia and China, he continued.
Of course, we also need to lessen the tax burden.
“I think tax cuts aren’t a fairytale; I think they’re a necessary first step to deal with the cost-of-living challenge.”
If support is spread too thinly among them all, Ms. Truss worries that nobody on the Conservative Right will make it to the final two.
The Right of the party needs to quickly decide, according to an ally. Liz is the only candidate the Right should rally around if they don’t want Rishi Sunak to be prime minister.
Liz is the only person who can maintain the PM’s coalition for 2019, who can return us to properly Conservative economic ideas, and who has the experience to get things going.
But there is a legitimate worry that if the Right splits, Rishi and his backers will be able to manipulate the election to put him up against a Left-leaning opponent in the final two.
Obtaining the backing of 20 MPs to qualify for the leadership poll, according to Nusrat Ghani, vice-chair of the 1922 Committee, “isn’t going to be a simple feat.”
She had remarked that she believed there might be as many as 16 contestants.
She responded to a question about how many candidates would overcome the initial barrier of obtaining 20 supporters by saying, “I’m wishing good luck to every contender.”
When I believe some of us started receiving incoming calls, I briefly considered the possibility that there were as many as 16 of us.
Who knows, though, who knows? It won’t be simple to win the backing of 20 supporters.
There are currently 11, but there could be 12. Let’s check to see who has received the nomination by 10 p.m. tonight.
The committee, according to her, “will do everything we can” to ensure that the procedure is as ‘efficient and quick’ as possible.
In order to “make sure we’re doing everything we can appropriately without fear or favor,” she continued, the executive of the 1922 Committee would not publicly declare who they are backing in the leadership contest.
Today, Mr. Sunak will formally announce his campaign for Tory leader and prime minister and name Lord Lamont as a supporter.
Even if some of his rivals have made a deluge of tax-cutting promises, Mr. Sunak will stress that he won’t begin to lower taxes until inflation has been “gripped” and brought under control.
He would assert that he had to make some of the “most difficult choices in my life” in response to criticism of his financial record.
Another turbulent day in the contest to become the next prime minister:
There were rumors that during the 2019 Tory leadership contest, Mr. Johnson’s campaign staff persuaded certain supporters to donate votes to Jeremy Hunt to ensure he made it into the final two because they thought he would be simpler to defeat.
A key member of Mr. Johnson’s staff, Sir Gavin Williamson, is now working on Mr. Sunak’s campaign. Gav “would try and get another no-hoper on the ballot with his man,” a Tory source said.
“He could even make sure it is Jeremy again.”
Last night, Mrs. Braverman’s staff supported demands for the Tory Right to come together behind a “Stop Rishi” candidate, but she chose not to quit.
By announcing her candidacy live on television last Wednesday, the Attorney General gained an advantage over her competitors.
The Right of the party has to unite around a single supporter of Brexit who party members also truly like, according to an ally. A disaster would result if they can’t.
Campaign manager for Mrs. Braverman, Mr. Baker, called it “crazy” to have candidates running everywhere.
There is a risk of disintegration, he said on BBC Radio 4’s PM program. As much as I love Kemi, I’m afraid it’s a little implausible that she will decide to stand.
“She hasn’t served in the Cabinet; Suella has,” the speaker asserts.