A leadership election will be completed within the next week to replace Truss, the shortest prime minister in British history. George Canning previously held the record, serving 119 days in 1827 when he died.
1922 Committee Chairman Graham Brady gave some details on how a successor would be chosen and said he would provide more information on the process later in the day.
With divisions within the party, there is no clear candidate and any replacement will face a country potentially falling into recession. Here are the top names:
Rishi Sunak
The former UK finance minister was the most popular candidate among Conservative lawmakers at Westminster in a leadership contest earlier this year, but after weathering the run against Truss, he was lost in a vote attended by about 170,000 party members who made the final decision. .
Many members were angered when Sunak quit in July, helping to trigger a rebellion that eventually brought Johnson down. They also ignored his warning that markets could lose confidence in Britain if Truss delivers on her unrefundable tax cuts.
The Telegraph reported on Thursday that Sunak “definitely” will stand in the leadership contest.
Penny Mordaunt
A former Defense Secretary, Mordaunt was a staunch supporter of leaving the European Union, who missed just the last two places in a recent leadership challenge.
Mordaunt won critical acclaim for her performance in parliament on Monday, as she defended the government even as it reversed most of its policies.
One lawmaker described Mordaunt as having “widespread appeal”, referring to the party’s ability to find friends among different tribes.
Jeremy Hunt
After Truss’ economic program collapsed and she fired her finance minister, she turned to Hunt, a former foreign affairs and health minister, to get things going.
A series of confident displays on television and in the House of Commons, when he tore up Truss’ economic manifesto, led some Conservative lawmakers to consider Hunt the “real prime minister”.
He has insisted he does not want the top job, despite having entered two previous races to become prime minister, including in 2019 when he lost in the final round to the former prime minister. Boris Johnson. Hunt does not have the clear support of a large group of lawmakers in parliament.
Ben Wallace
The UK Defense Secretary is one of the few ministers to have emerged from recent political turmoil with his popularity elevated. Wallace, a military veteran who was defense secretary to both Johnson and Truss, spearheaded the British response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Popular with party members, he surprised many earlier this year by saying he would not run for leadership, saying he wanted to focus on his current job. He told the Times this week that he still wants to stay as defense secretary.
Boris Johnson
Former Prime Minister Johnson, a journalist, has been well known in British politics since he became Mayor of London in 2008. After causing trouble for leaders such as David Cameron and Theresa May, he finally made it. became prime minister in 2019 and went on to win resounding election victories.
Johnson is the face of Vote Brexit and won votes in places that had never voted for the Conservative Party before. But he was forced out by a series of scandals.
Some of those closest to him say he is at the moment more interested in making money on the public speaking circuit than getting back into front-line politics.
The Times reports that Johnson is expected to stand in the Conservative Party leadership race. The Times’ political editor Steven Swinford said on Twitter: “He’s been hearing things but is said to believe it’s a matter of national interest.”
