Former finance minister Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss will battle it out to become Britain’s next prime minister after they won the final lawmaker vote, setting up the last stage of the contest to replace Boris Johnson.
Sunak has led in all rounds of the voting among Conservative lawmakers, but it is Truss who seems to have gained the advantage so far among the 200,000 members of the governing party who will ultimately choose the winner.
The final stretch of a weeks-long contest will pit Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs banker who has raised the tax burden towards the highest level since the 1950s, against Truss, a convert to Brexit who has pledged to cut taxes and regulation.
Whoever triumphs when the result is announced on Sept. 5 will inherit some of the most difficult conditions in Britain in decades. Inflation is on course to hit 11% annually, growth is stalling, industrial action is on the rise and the pound is near historic lows against the dollar.
Britain under Johnson, and aided by Truss, also took a hard line against Brussels in its post-Brexit negotiations around Northern Ireland, drawing legal action from the European Union and threatening future trade ties.
Eleven candidates originally put their names forward, but in a fifth and final ballot of Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday, the junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt was eliminated. Sunak won 137 votes, versus Truss’s 113 and Mordaunt’s 105.
Polls show Truss would beat Sunak in the party members’ contest, opening up the chance that Conservatives elect a leader who was not the most popular choice for lawmakers.
Truss thanked some lawmakers outside parliament shortly after the votes were announced. “I am in it, to win it,” she said to reporters. In a statement, she added: “As prime minister I would hit the ground running from day one, unite the party and govern in line with Conservative values.”
Sunak said on Twitter: “Grateful that my colleagues have put their trust in me today. I will work night and day to deliver our message around the country.”
Mordaunt, who was just eight votes behind Truss, called on the party to unite after an often ugly leadership contest.
“Politics isn’t easy. It can be a divisive and difficult place,” she said in a statement. “We must all now work together to unify our party and focus on the job that needs to be done.”
