Rishi Sunak wins Tory leadership race to become UK’s next prime minister

Rishi Sunak will become Britain’s next prime minister after winning the leadership race for the ruling Conservative Party, triggered by last week’s resignation of Liz Truss.

According to Press TV, Sunak, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster, won the leadership contest on Monday just days after Truss resigned from office following the humiliating collapse of her tax cuts plans, which further plunged the country into economic turmoil.

He defeated centrist politician Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, who announced her withdrawal from the race just minutes before the winner was due to be announced. Mordaunt failed to get enough backing from Tory MPs to enter the leadership contest.

Sunak and Mordaunt had lost to Truss in an earlier race to appoint a new leader after then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned in July.

“This decision is an historic one and shows, once again, the diversity and talent of our party,” Mordaunt said in a statement. “Rishi has my full support.”

Sunak, who will be the country’s first leader of color, faces the enormous task of leading a deeply-divided country out of years of economic and political turmoil.

The former hedge fund executive will be expected to usher in deep spending cuts in an effort to rebuild Britain’s fiscal reputation, as the UK slides into a recession sparked in part by soaring energy and food prices.

Sunak, 42, is a rising star in British politics, having entered Parliament in 2015 after a career in banking. Boris Johnson appointed him in 2020 as finance minister, a role formally known as chancellor of the exchequer.