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Who could take over as British Prime Minister?

#British #Prime #Minister

The race to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and British Prime Minister has dwindled to five candidates after the second round of Tory MPs on Thursday.

As former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak leads the way with his fellow MPs, second-placed Penny Mordaunt votes in front of party members who will ultimately decide the winner.

-Rishi Sunak-

Britain’s first Hindu finance minister and Britain’s wealthiest MP, Sunak, resigned last week and resigned three days later.

Sunak, 42, launched his campaign on Tuesday and said he would not “demonize” the outgoing Johnson despite helping to spark his death.

His star rose quickly during his early tenure as Treasury Secretary, overseeing the furlough scheme that subsidized workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

He has long been considered Johnson’s most likely successor, but his popularity has waned recently amid rampant inflation and questions about his personal fortune and his family’s tax regime.

Sunak, who backed Brexit in the 2016 referendum, made millions in finance before politics, and his Indian wife Akshata Murty’s father was a co-founder of IT giant Infosys.

Its apparent reluctance to take immediate tax cuts could also hurt its prospects, while recent polls of members have also shown it lagging behind most of its leading rivals.

-Penny Mordaunt-

Mordaunt, 49, is currently the favorite to win the entire competition based on her perceived popularity with the party’s grassroots.

Several recent polls have shown that it beats all other contenders in the last runoff vote presented to members.

Such polls can be very volatile, however, and relatively little is known about Mordaunt, despite being the first female Defense Secretary and current Trade Secretary.

After a successful campaign start on Wednesday, she was bumped to the ground on Thursday when David Frost, the government’s former Brexit scorer who remains influential among the Tories at grassroots level, launched a scathing attack.

Mordaunt was a strong Brexit supporter and a key figure in the 2016 Leave campaign, but Frost told TalkTV that “I would have serious reservations” about her becoming leader.

“I’m afraid she was somehow not fully accountable, she wasn’t always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where she was,” he said of working with her in the post-Brexit negotiations with the EU last year.

The former wizard assistant has promised a return to conservative politics of “low taxes, small government and personal responsibility” and a “relentless focus on cost-of-living issues”.

-Liz Truss-

Secretary of State Truss launched her campaign on Thursday, citing her references to Brexit and Ukraine while promising tax cuts.

She has also underscored her expertise in economics amid the current cost of living crisis after serving at the Treasury.

The 46-year-old has won the support of pro-Brexit Johnson loyalists in Cabinet and is popular with Conservative members for her outspokenness.

But it has also raised questions about her judgement, for example when she encouraged the British to fight in Ukraine in February.

Despite the high-profile backing, she has so far failed to rally pro-Brexit MPs.

Critics say her leadership stance was too obvious and questioned her principles after she campaigned against Brexit in 2016, only to later ally with the Tory right.

When she headed the International Trade Department, some MPs dubbed her the “Instagram Truss Department” for her prolific output on the social media site.

-Kemi Badenoch-

Former Equality Minister Badenoch, who resigned last week, was the campaign’s surprise package, emerging from relative obscurity to usher in high-profile candidates including former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi.

The 42-year-old, who spent much of her childhood in Nigeria, is a harsh critic of “identity politics”, a supporter of Brexit and a strong advocate of conservatism.

Her campaign received a boost from endorsement by Tory heavyweight Michael Gove.

-Tom Tugendhat-

The prominent backbencher, chairman of the influential parliamentary foreign affairs committee, was the first to present his candidacy.

A former army officer who served in the Middle East, he is also a China hawk and has criticized the government’s handling of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

The 49-year-old pledged to spend 3.0 percent of GDP on defense when he launched his campaign on Tuesday.

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