Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister who lost the race to become Britain’s prime minister on Monday, said the party must now unite behind winner Liz Truss, who is set to be the next UK PM.
“Thank you to everyone who voted for me in this campaign. I’ve said throughout that the Conservatives are one family. It’s right we now unite behind the new PM, Liz Truss, as she steers the country through difficult times,” Sunak tweeted.
After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive leadership contest, Truss, currently the foreign minister, defeated Sunak in a vote of Conservative Party members, winning by 81,326 votes to 60,399. It was possibly closer than some people had expected.
Sunak, a former investment banker and Oxford and Stanford University graduate, was elected member of Parliament from the Tory stronghold of Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015. He quickly rose up the party ranks from junior ministerial posts to Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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The former finance minister is expected to continue to champion the cause of the over 1.5-million strong Indian diaspora from the backbenches along with his own constituents.
“I’m going to stay as a member of Parliament… It’s been a great privilege to represent my constituents in Richmond in North Yorkshire as their member of Parliament and I’ll love to keep doing that as long as they’ll have me,” he said, when asked what next in case he lost to Truss, the foreign minister.
“I need to recover from this one,” he added when pushed if he would contest a second time in the future.
Truss will take over as the UK faces a cost of living crisis, industrial unrest, a recession and war in Europe, where Britain has been a leading backer of Ukraine. She appeared to rule out another national election for the next two years, saying she would win a great victory for her party in 2024.
She succeeds Boris Johnson, who was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal saw support for his administration drain away.
He will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation. Truss will follow him and be asked to form a government by the monarch.
Long the front-runner to replace him, Truss will become the Conservatives’ fourth prime minister since a 2015 election. Foreign minister under Johnson, Truss, 47, has promised to act quickly to tackle the cost of living crisis, saying that within a week she will come up with a plan to tackle rising energy bills and securing future fuel supplies.
(With inputs from agencies)
