One of These Characters Will Be the UK’s Next Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have been selected as the final two Conservative Party leadership candidates who will go head-to-head in September for the votes of a shockingly small electorate to become the UK’s next Prime Minister.

As the Conservative leadership election reaches its final leg following the departure of Boris Johnson, candidates will now appeal to the roughly 200,000 ruling Conservative party members for their vote. Of those 200,000 members, 44 percent are over 65, 97 percent are white, and 54 per cent live in London and the south of England, according to research from the Mile End Institute.

In the UK, people vote for a party rather than a Prime Ministerial candidate, which means the ruling party can swap leaders without it always sparking a general election. 

Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor – who is head of the country’s finances – received 137 votes by Tory MPs, and Truss, who received 113 MP votes, will now begin campaigns across the country, targeting Conservative members who will decide who they want to be the next PM. Penny Mordaunt was knocked out of the contest after receiving 105 votes.

So what do we know about the two candidates?

Rishi Sunak
Slogan: Ready for Rishi

Sunak was first flung into the public consciousness in early 2020 when he was promoted to handling the country’s finances just as the COVID pandemic hit. 

Sunak is thought to be the richest Member of Parliament. He was educated at one of the UK’s most expensive private schools, Winchester College, and went on to marry Akshata Murthy, whose parents founded the multi-billion-pound Indian IT company, Infosys.

Sunak is best known for introducing the furlough scheme during the coronavirus pandemic, a financial support programme subsidising some wages, as well as Eat Out to Help Out, which subsidised the hospitality business during the summer of 2020, but which also contributed to the second wave of the virus and subsequent deaths. 

Sunak was fined alongside a number of politicians for becoming embroiled in what became known as the Partygate scandal, after breaking laws set by his own party during the pandemic.

Sunak eventually resigned as Chancellor in July after it emerged that Johnson had been aware of groping allegations against MP Chris Pincher but promoted him into a government job anyway. In his resignation letter, Sunak said that it was clear his and Johnson’s approaches were “fundamentally too different.”

Before MPs had cast their final vote, Sunak was one of the few candidates not promising tax cuts but instead committing to “a return to traditional Conservative economic values – and that means…not fairytales,” – potentially hinting at spending cuts.

He has also mentioned continuing the ban on wind farm expansion despite the UK facing its hottest days on record this month.

He is backed by MPs like Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, the former No 10 Chief of Staff Steve Barclay and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. In a general election, Sunak is likely to carry both positive and negative baggage from his role as Chancellor during the pandemic. 

Liz Truss
Slogan: Liz for Leader

Truss’ journey from Johnson loyalist to one of two potential candidates to lead the country has come as a shock to some. The MP for South West Norfolk has been known for her penchant for photo opportunities, as well as a desire to emulate Margaret Thatcher at every opportunity.

Before becoming a politician, Truss worked at oil conglomerate Shell as well as telecommunications company Cable & Wireless.

Truss, who has been the MP for South West Norfolk since 2010, was one of the few cabinet members not to resign from Johnson’s government during the Pincher scandal and is currently foreign secretary and minister for women and equalities. 

Truss voted to remain in the European Union during the Brexit referendum but later said she regretted her decision as she, since the vote, could see that “our economy has done well.”  The UK has experienced the lowest growth in the G20 since the Brexit vote according to OECD think-tank, apart from Russia, which is currently facing global sanctions. 

Memorable moments for the MP include a bizarre and stilted speech at the 2014 Conservative party conference, where she famously declared that Britain “imports two-thirds of our cheese….that…  is… a… disgrace!”

This Christmas, she took the opportunity to wish the people of the UK season greetings in a carefully curated photoshoot, and a few months later shared a photo from Moscow’s Red Square, an unsubtle homage to an almost identical photograph of Thatcher. Her image-focused social media presence has  meant some in her team nicknamed the Department for International Trade (DIT), the “Department for Instagramming Truss.”

Despite her gawky personality and terrible stage presence, Truss has done well with MPs and is liked by Conservative party members. How well she would do with the general public, however, is yet to be determined. A YouGov poll put her favourability at -23, despite becoming more well-known.