Rishi Sunak (42) won the race. His only remaining competitor, Penny Mordaunt, withdrew on Monday. In early September, Sunak lost to Liz Truss in the race to succeed Boris Johnson. Truss resigned on Thursday after more than six turbulent weeks. “Britain is a great country, but we are in a serious economic crisis. That’s why I want to lead the conservative party and become the next prime minister,” Sunak wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Nominations could be received until Monday. However, according to the “Economist”, Sunak already had significantly more than the necessary 100 supporters in the group. If, contrary to expectations, he does not win the race now, the decision will be made on Friday. Who is the suddenly prominent Sunak, in all probability should he be elected today?
He is one of the richest Britons
Sunak was born in Southampton, England and is of Indian descent. He attended the elite boarding school Winchester College in southwest England, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and earned a Masters of Business Administration from Stanford University in California. At Stanford he met his now wife Akshata Murty (42), the daughter of a billionaire. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2022, Sunak and Murty are the 222nd richest in Britain and their net worth is estimated at around £730 million. The couple has two daughters and a Labrador.
After graduation, Sunak worked for Goldman Sachs and later as a partner at hedge fund firm The Children’s Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners. He has been the Member of Parliament for North Yorkshire in the British House of Commons since 2015. Like Liz Truss, Sunak supports Brexit, the two differences in nuance, as the September election campaign showed. All in all, though, he’s not a hardliner like her.
He was crossed with Johnson
Moreover, he is not undisputed in the conservative party, which is why he lost to Truss at the time. Because Sunak was finance minister under ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson (58) and had contributed to his fall, which the Tory supporters had against him. But now, for tactical reasons, Sunak is tweeting that Johnson has led the country through some of its toughest challenges. “We will always be grateful to him for that.”
Many MPs now praise Sunak for repeatedly warning during the election campaign about the chaos that Truss’s economic policies have unleashed on the financial markets. Truss had campaigned for debt-funded tax cuts.
His position has not been definitively clarified
It should not be forgotten, however, that the Tories must, above all, quickly determine a successor. Party leader Angela Rayner said: “The Tories are about to hand Sunak the keys to Downing Street without him having said a word about how he plans to rule.”
The optimism associated with Sunak’s candidacy is palpable, at least in the markets. The British pound has strengthened in a short period of time.