A new leadership contest will be held within a week, Liz Truss said in her resignation speech outside Downing Street on Thursday.
Graham Brady, the Conservative official in charge of the process, announced that candidates to replace Truss would need at least 100 nominations from Conservative MPs.
If more than one candidate meets this threshold, they will be put to Conservative members in an online vote, with the new prime minister announced on Friday 28 October.
This will be the fifth Conservative prime minister in just over six years – and the third this term. But who can be the next leader? Here are some of the main runners and riders:
Sunak has proven to be something of a prophet of government collapse, with many of the predictions he made during his summer leadership about the Truss economic plan coming true.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) has warned that unfunded Trus tax cuts will lead to a rise in sterling, panic in the bond market and concern from the International Monetary Fund. Perhaps even he would have been surprised at the rate at which he was proven right.
Sunak has experience in combating the financial crisis, having guided the UK through the Covid-19 pandemic.
He also secured the most votes from MPs in the last leadership election – comfortably closing in on the new mark with 137 approvals. Although Truss ultimately won the decisive vote of the members, Sunak lost only narrowly – with 43% of the vote.
The trust he has among MPs – and the vindication his predictions have won – may make him the most likely next set of hands to steer the ship.
The leader of the House of Commons may have had a dress rehearsal for being prime minister this week after stepping in for an absent Liz Truss in a debate.
“The prime minister is not under a desk,” Mordaunt confirmed on Tuesday – in a performance that seemed as much to promote herself as to help the prime minister.
Mordaunt came third in the last leadership election, narrowly missing out on the membership. With 105 votes from the MPs in the last elections, it is expected that she will also exceed the triton limit.
She is expected to perform well among party members, partly because of her military credentials. Mordaunt is a reservist in the Royal Navy and briefly served as Secretary of State for Defence.
Like Sunak, she comes from the more moderate wing of the party. There has even been talk among MPs of the two forming a ‘dream team’ ticket, although this has yet to materialize – and it is unclear whether either would agree to be chancellor to take the top job.
Badenoch came fourth in this summer’s leadership election – securing only 59 votes from MPs – but was consistently rated by pollsters as the favorite among members of the Conservative base.
One of the youngest MPs in the running, Badenoch quickly won the endorsement of long-time Tory grandee Michael Gove, who praised her as the “outstanding talent” in the party.
Badenoch is from the right of the Tory party – and in her previous leadership bid she showed that the government’s climate targets could prove very costly.
With Truss’ MP votes now in his favour, Badenoch may have an outside chance of clearing the threshold and reaching the members’ vote.
Many allies argued that Johnson could be a unity candidate who could bring stability to the country, despite the fact that he resigned in disgrace just a few months ago after a series of scandals came together, making his position untenable.
Asked by CNN how they could justify Johnson being prime minister again, an MP who campaigned for Johnson in the 2019 leadership campaign said: “The socialists are going to destroy our economy and if you don’t understand that, you really I fear for our future. .”
Another MP who backed Johnson in 2019 said he was the only candidate who could comfortably win over both Conservative MPs and Conservative Party members.
Johnson’s closest allies said they were aware of active lobbying in the hours after Truss’s resignation speech, telling him he represented the best possible effort to stabilize the party in the medium term.
In his final speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street, Johnson made one of his signature allusions to ancient history. He said he would “return to his plough” like the Roman statesman Cincinnatus – suggesting a quieter life on the back benches. But Cincinnatus did not see his days that way. He was called back from his plow to return to Rome for a second term – this time as dictator.
Some suspect the new 100-vote limit is an attempt by the Conservative Party to make another term for Johnson impossible. It is expected to do extremely well in a vote by party members – but the high threshold of votes from MPs means it is unlikely to get to that stage.
It is a sign of the last-day disarray of the Truss government that she made Grand Shapps home secretary – despite not offering her any ministerial role when she first took office.
Shapps served as transport secretary under Boris Johnson. He put himself forward to succeed him in the previous leadership election – only to withdraw from the race three days later after failing to secure the required 20 MP votes to advance to the next round.
The new limit will likely prove too high for Shapps – but his criticism of the Truss government from the start may have won him the support of more MPs than last time.
Suella Braverman’s resignation as Home Secretary on Wednesday night may have been the harbinger of a potential leadership bid. The former attorney general has not run for office before – but with her tough stance on immigration, she may look poised to drag the party further to the right.
Tom Tugendhat has emerged as the surprise favorite among Tory members and the general public, despite coming just fifth in the last leadership election. Having served as a cabinet member before that contest, Tugendhat distanced himself from the moral mess of Johnson’s government and promised a “clean start” for Britain. After serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tugendhat was made Security Secretary by Truss.
Ben Wallace, the defense secretary and another ex-serviceman, was tipped to succeed Johnson in the latest leadership contest – polling exceptionally well among Conservative members. However, he never stood in that election and it is unclear whether his position has changed since then.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May has also been touted as a possible “unity” candidate to succeed Mr Truss. May tried to rally the warring wings of the Conservative party over Brexit, in a move that eventually saw her replaced by Boris Johnson. With the party proving unable to resolve its differences this time around, another attempt at compromise may soon be in order.
