Rishi Sunak will have an audience with King Charles at Buckingham Palace today before addressing the nation as Britain’s new Prime Minister outside Downing Street – as he prepares to choose his Cabinet amid soaring inflation and energy bills.
The 42-year-old is due to travel to the palace meet the monarch this morning before making his first address at around 11.35am.
He today pledged to run No10 with ‘integrity and humility’ but warned of ‘profound challenges’ to come as he prepares to begin his premiership.
Mr Sunak delivered the stark message after being confirmed as the next PM when his sole remaining rival Penny Mordaunt failed to make the threshold of 100 nominations needed to trigger a run-off in the Tory leadership contest.
Speaking to a camera at Conservative HQ, Mr Sunak said the UK is a ‘great country’ and vowed to work ‘day in and day out’, but pointed to serious economic problems.
Outgoing PM Liz Truss is due to chair a last Cabinet meeting at 9am tomorrow before making a final address as premier outside No10. She will then travel to Buckingham Palace to formally offer her resignation to King Charles.
His Majesty will subsequently appoint Mr Sunak as PM, with the incoming premier set to make his own speech from Downing Street around 11.35am after travelling back from the Palace.
When Boris Johnson chaired his final Cabinet meeting in July, he was presented with Winston Churchill’s six-volume history on the Second World War following a whip-round among his top ministers.
Ms Truss will also be expected to receive a gift from her senior team when she addresses them for the final time tomorrow, despite lasting just 44 days as PM before resigning.
Mr Sunak received a rapturous reception when he made a 10-minute private speech to MPs at Parliament this afternoon, telling his troops that leadership challengers Mr Johnson and Ms Mordaunt, as well as his former rival Ms Truss, were ‘all good Conservative colleagues and friends’.
‘We’re united behind the policy and now cannot afford the indulgence of division over personality,’ he added.
According to one MP present he said: ‘We have one chance. It is unite or die.’
It marks a spectacular political revival for Mr Sunak, just seven weeks after he was soundly defeated by Ms Truss in the struggle to succeed Mr Johnson. But after her extraordinary 44-day implosion, he now faces one of the toughest in-trays for any PM with the public finances in chaos and the worst of the cost-of-living to come.
One of his first tasks will be to form a new Cabinet that can unite the warring party, with Jeremy Hunt set to continue as Chancellor – a week before he delivers a crucial Halloween Budget – and speculation that Ms Mordaunt could become Foreign Secretary.
Ms Truss congratulated Mr Sunak on his ‘appointment’ this afternoon, saying he had her ‘full support’.
Mr Sunak received public backing from over 190 Tory MPs – well over half the total – racking up more numbers as prominent supporters of Mr Johnson jumped on the bandwagon. They included senior figures such as James Cleverly, Brandon Lewis, Simon Clarke, Iain Duncan Smith, Priti Patel, and Nadhim Zahawi.
Mr Sunak will be the country’s first non-white premier, and at 42 the youngest since the Napoleonic Wars.
Ms Mordaunt sounded defiance up until moments before the announcement, with allies claiming she had more than 90 supporters even though only 25 were publicly declared.
However, in a statement at 1.58pm Ms Mordaunt tweeted to admit she could not take the contest to the next phase. ‘Rishi has my full support,’ she posted.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the new leader had made it clear that getting the economy moving was ‘critical’
Asked if Mr Sunak had an ‘impossible task’ leading a divided party, Sir Iain added: ‘I think today will have brought that to an end. It is not ungovernable, if it chooses to be.
‘But looking at the response inside there today I think people are relieved, they want to get behind the PM and we have to do it. There is no other choice.
‘So I don’t think there is a need for an election, I don’t want one now, I want us to deliver on what we said we would do and then go to the polls at the normal time.’
The breakneck developments appear to have cooled the markets, in what is being branded a ‘dullness dividend’. Government borrowing costs have eased, the Pound has rallied, and expectations for interest rates are more than a percentage point lower than after the mini-Budget.
However, other Johnsonites warned that he will need to call a snap election because he does not have a mandate – while the ex-PM himself suggested in his bombshell concession last night that he is only standing aside until the ‘right time’.
Source: Mail online.