The new UK prime minister to replace outgoing incumbent Boris Johnson will be announced on September 5, the ruling Conservative party said yesterday.
“We do need to make sure there is a decent amount of time before the result is announced on 5th September,” Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservatives’ influential 1922 Committee, told reporters as he revealed details of the party leadership election timetable.
Yesterday Foreign Secretary Liz Truss became the latest high-profile name to put herself forward, echoing the promises of her rivals to cut taxes and saying she would maintain a tough line against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Johnson was forced out on Thursday after his government imploded over a series of scandals.
The contest is for the leadership of the ruling Conservative Party, with the winner then becoming prime minister.
Lawmakers will have to whittle the candidates down to a final two by July 21, before a postal ballot of the Conservative Party’s 200,000 members takes place over the summer.
Bob Blackman, a Conservative lawmaker who sits on the executive of the 1922 Committee which sets the rules, had earlier said that he expects candidates to secure the support of about 20 lawmakers to proceed to the first round of voting, before further ballots decide a final two.
Already the battle for the top job is becoming personal.
The former finance minister, Sajid Javid, another of the 11 candidates, criticised what he called “poisonous gossip” and “attack memos” delivered by some colleagues over the weekend.
“This isn’t the House of Cards or the Game of Thrones, and the people who are here just because they enjoy the game, they are in the wrong place,” he said. “This is a time for pulling together, not apart.”
The race followed one of the most tumultuous periods in modern British political history, when more than 50 government ministers and aides quit, denouncing Johnson’s character, integrity and inability to tell the truth.
With many lawmakers unhappy with the disgraced Johnson remaining in office until a successor is found, the party is looking to accelerate the election process.
The issue of tax cuts was fast becoming the central battle in the race with nearly all of the candidates promising to cut business or personal taxes.
Setting out her pitch, Truss, who has held ministerial positions in a number of government departments including that of trade, justice and the treasury, said that she would reverse the recent rise in National Insurance contributions and signalled a cut to corporation tax.
Fellow contenders Jeremy Hunt and Javid both pledged to cut corporation tax, while the former defence minister, Penny Mordaunt, has promised to cut fuel duty.
The former finance minister Rishi Sunak is the early front runner, but he is the only candidate who has played down the prospect of imminent tax cuts, saying that the adoption of “comforting fairy tales” would leave future generations worse off.
This has prompted his rivals to attack his economic record after the tax burden rose to the highest level since the 1950s.
One lawmaker confirmed that a dossier criticising Sunak’s record had been circulating on lawmaker WhatsApp groups.
Nadhim Zahawi, appointed finance minister in the turmoil of last week, said that he was also being targeted by rivals after media reports raised questions about the former businessman’s personal finances and tax record.
Whoever wins the leadership race will be faced with a daunting in-tray.
Britain’s economy is facing rocketing inflation, high debt, and low growth, with people coping with the tightest squeeze on their finances in decades, all set against a backdrop of an energy crunch exacerbated by the war in Ukraine which has sent fuel prices soaring.
On the issue of immigration, all the main leadership candidates have pledged to keep the government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, showing how the party has moved to the right of the political spectrum in recent years.
Other candidates include the attorney-general, Suella Braverman, the chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee Tom Tugendhat, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
One Conservative member of parliament said he was astonished by the number of his people entering the leadership contest.
“I shouldn’t be surprised by the ambitions and the delusions of some of my colleagues, but I am,” he said. “I expect we will narrow down the list of candidates very quickly.”
The opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer in a speech took aim at an “arms race of fantasy economics” from the Conservative leadership candidates, claiming that more than £200bn ($239bn) of commitments made by them over the weekend were unfunded.
Johnson has declined to endorse any of the candidates
On a visit to a science research institute in London, the prime minister was asked directly if he would endorse any of the candidates.
“The job of the prime minister at this stage is to let the party decide, let them get on with it, and to continue delivering on the projects that we were elected to deliver,” he said.
In his speech, Johnson blamed the “herd” for moving against him.
However, he refused to say whether he felt betrayed.
“I don’t want to say any more about all that,” Johnson said. “There’s a contest under way and that has happened and you know, I wouldn’t want to damage any chances by offering my support.”
“I just have to get on and in the last few days or weeks ... the constitutional function of the prime minister in this situation is to continue to discharge the mandate. And that’s what I’m doing,” he added. “The more we focus on the people who elect us ... (and) the less we talk about politics at Westminster, the generally happier we will all be.”
Prime Minister Johnson speaks during a visit to the Francis Crick Institute in London yesterday.
