As early as 2PM Monday afternoon, the UK is scheduled to announce its new Prime Minister. Rishi Sunak (pictured center above )could be named as the new PM as early as 2.15pm according to local press reports.
However, his sole remaining rival Penny Mordaunt struggling to reach the threshold of 100 nominations needed to trigger a ballot.
The former Chancellor, who officially launched his campaign yesterday morning, has received public backing of from more than 150 Tory MPs – and is racking up more numbers as prominent supporters of Mr Johnson jump on the bandwagon.
He would be the country’s first non-white premier. However, the challenge he faces has been laid bare as other Johnsonites warned that he will need to call a snap election because he does not have a mandate – while the ex-PM himself suggested in his bombshell concession last night that he is only standing aside until the ‘right time’.
Mr Johnson claimed he reached the ‘very high hurdle of 102 nominations’ and believed there was a ‘very good chance’ that he would have been successful in the leadership contest.
With this successful — comeback for Rishi Sunak, now set to be Prime Minister. It was only last month that he was rejected by the Conservative Party’s membership in favour of Liz Truss.
And he still did not know whether he would fight afresh for an opportunity which he never imagined would come again, or at least definitely not this side of a General Election.
He certainly wasn’t taking an ‘I told you so’ attitude — even though he had predicted exactly what would happen if a Tory Government adopted what, during that leadership election, he denounced as ‘fairytale economics’.
He warned presciently that a policy of massive unfunded tax cuts would cause interest rates to spike upwards, to the great cost of mortgage holders.
