The winner of the race to replace Boris Johnson as the next leader of the ruling Conservative Party – and UK’s new prime minister – will be named on Monday. The two contenders are Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former finance minister Rishi Sunak.
According to recent polls, Britain’s top diplomat enjoys overwhelming support among Tory members.
On Tuesday, Johnson is expected to deliver a farewell speech and announce his resignation to the Queen, who will then officially appoint either Truss or Sunak as his successor. The new British prime minister will then form a cabinet, but Johnson will remain in office until the power transfer is complete.
Johnson, who led his party to a landslide election victory in 2019 and led Britain out of the European Union, stepped down as Conservative leader on July 7 after more than 50 members of parliament resigned from his government within 48 hours. It followed a series of high-profile scandals, including Johnson hiring as his deputy chief whip a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct, and an internal inquiry earlier this year that found that cabinet officials – and the PM himself – had routinely broken their own Covid-19 social distancing rules.