Former British chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak on Monday widened his lead in the latest round of voting by Conservative lawmakers to decide the next prime minister, but the race to get in the final two tightened.
Sunak won the support of 115 Conservative lawmakers, followed by Penny Mordaunt with 82 votes, Liz Truss with 71, Kemi Badenoch with 58 and Tom Tugendhat with 31, who drops out as the last-placed candidate, the party announced.
Lawmakers are to keep voting until only two candidates remain, the winner then being decided by Conservative Party members.
Photo: Reuters
Mordaunt had been the bookmakers’ favorite before the weekend, but lost votes from the previous round. British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Truss closed the gap to 11 and can probably expect more support switching to her from Badenoch’s backers, should the insurgent candidate be eliminated in the next round, promising a tense race to make the final cut today.
Television bosses earlier on Monday scrapped a planned debate between the remaining contenders for Tuesday night after Sunak and Truss pulled out, said Sky News, which was due to host it.
“Conservative MPs [members of parliament] are said to be concerned about the damage the debates are doing to the image of the Conservative Party, exposing disagreements and splits within the party,” it added in a statement.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on July 7 announced that he was quitting as Conservative Party leader after a government rebellion in protest at his scandal-hit administration.
He is staying on as prime minister until his successor is announced on Sept. 5.
In the two previous televised debates on Friday and Sunday the contenders clashed notably on whether to cut taxes to help ease a soaring cost of living crisis, but Sunday’s clash turned more acrimonious — and personal — with candidates encouraged to directly criticize one another and their proposals.
Sunak called out Truss for voting against Brexit, her previous membership of the Liberal Democrats and her position on tax.
In turn, Truss questioned Sunak’s stewardship of the economy.
Badenoch attacked Mordaunt for her stance on transgender rights — a rallying call in the “culture wars” exercising the right of the party.
Paul Goodman, from the ConservativeHome Web site, likened the debates to a “political version of The Hunger Games,” questioning their decision to agree to them.
“Tory MPs and activists will have watched in horror as several of the candidates flung buckets of manure over each other,” Goodman wrote.
He asked why they would agree to publicly criticize the record of the government that all but one of them served in, or the policies they supported as ministers.
The main opposition Labour Party has called for Johnson to leave office immediately. Leader Keir Starmer called the candidates’ withdrawal a sign of a party “out of ideas [and] out of purpose.”
“Pulling out of a TV debate when you want to be prime minister doesn’t show very much confidence,” he said.
The government blocked attempts by Starmer to call a vote of confidence in parliament to get rid of Johnson immediately, instead bringing forward its own vote on the government as a whole.
During the debate, Johnson defended his government’s record, citing the vaccine rollout and its support of Ukraine.
“I believe this is one the most dynamic governments of modern times, not just overcoming adversity on a scale we haven’t seen for centuries, but delivering throughout adversity,” Johnson said.
The government won the vote on Monday night by 349 votes to 238.
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn joked that his one-time sparring partner Johnson was taking lawmakers on a “fantasy tour of this country.”
Starmer called the outgoing leader a “vengeful squatter” in Downing Street.
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