Rishi Sunak to be appointed PM before building Cabinet

He took up the reins as leader of the Conservative Party without a vote after rivals Penny Mordaunt and Boris Johnson dropped out of the race for No 10, and will replace Liz Truss in the top job on Tuesday.

Allies hope he will stabilise the party following Mr Johnson’s dramatic downfall and his successor’s tumultuous tenure spanning only six weeks.

Mr Truss has held her final Cabinet meeting and was expected to give a farewell speech in Downing Street before formally tendering her resignation to Charles at Buckingham Palace.

Once she has left, it will be Mr Sunak’s turn to see the King, who will ask him to form an administration.

The new Tory leader is expected to address the nation just before noon, before entering No 10 as the UK’s first Hindu prime minister, the first of Asian heritage, and the youngest for more than 200 years at the age of 42.

The former chancellor will then turn his attention to assembling a top team that he will hope can return a measure of stability to both the Conservatives and the country.

Out to bat for the Sunak camp on Tuesday, former minister Victoria Atkins said she believed the Tories had “turned a corner” and would now “settle down” under the stewardship of the new PM.

She insisted he would stick to the Conservative 2019 manifesto, meaning there would be a continued focus on levelling up, the NHS and security.

Mr Sunak has been urged to avoid Ms Truss’s perceived error of appointing loyalists to key roles, with James Cleverly calling for the overhauled Cabinet to feature the best ministers.

The Foreign Secretary told Sky News: “We have got to have the first 15 on the pitch. I know that Rishi understands that.”

Mr Sunak will look to build a Cabinet of “all the talents” that will see the political return of the “adults”, according to reports.

While his team were remaining tight-lipped about the possible Cabinet composition, long-time backers Dominic Raab, the former justice secretary, Commons Treasury Committee chairman Mel Stride and ex-chief whip Mark Harper were tipped to be in it.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who was brought in to steady Ms Truss’s ailing Government and has been working towards a highly-anticipated Halloween fiscal statement, is widely expected to keep the keys to No 11 to try to stabilise the jittery markets.

Ms Mordaunt, who bowed out of the race to hand Mr Sunak a spectacular political comeback as she failed to get the 100 nominations from Tory MPs, is expected to get some kind of promotion – with some speculating that she could replace Mr Cleverly as foreign secretary.

Mr Sunak ruled out an early general election demanded by opposition parties as the Tories move onto their third prime minister on the mandate won by Mr Johnson in 2019.

On Tuesday, Pat McFadden, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, acknowledged the prospect of going back to the country now looked “less likely”.

Ms Atkins suggested Mr Sunak would be in “reassuring” mode as he sought to restore stability.

The former chancellor, whose resignation from Mr Johnson’s Government in July precipitated a mass exodus that led to the then-PM’s downfall, hit the ground running on Monday by telling Conservative MPs behind closed doors in the House of Commons they face an “existential moment”.

Three MPs in the room said his message to the party was they must “unite or die”, as they focus on delivering on the public’s priorities during a cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Sunak now has the daunting task of leading the nation through an economic crisis only exacerbated by the chaotic legacy of Ms Truss.

A wave of industrial unrest, a buckling health service and the risk of a nuclear escalation by Russian President Vladimir Putin are only some of the challenges he faces.

Mr Sunak’s ascendency from MP to PM is the fastest in modern political history, having first won the constituency of Richmond in North Yorkshire in 2015.

However, his journey to the top job has not been without its hitches, having been fined alongside Mr Johnson for breaching coronavirus rules and having faced questions over his wife Akshata Murty’s “non-dom” status for tax purposes.