Sunak Consolidates Early Lead in Race to Be UK Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak held an early advantage in the latest race for the Conservative Party leadership, with the former chancellor securing the backing of at least 100 Tory MPs and ensuring he’ll proceed to the ballot of party members next week if he publicly declares his candidacy.
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood tweeted late Friday that he was “honoured” to take Sunak to the three-figure threshold.
That scenario may have been discussed but not published. However, if three contenders reach the 100 threshold, Conservative MPs will knock out one contender in a ballot on the same day.
Apparently, Sunak has reached 100 already.
Next Prime Minister After Liz Truss
Is anyone surprised?
Rishi Sunak is expected to confirm his candidacy to be the next leader of the party and prime minister, according to campaign sources.
Currently 182 out of 357 Tory MPs have gone public with their support:
Rishi Sunak - 112 MPs
Boris Johnson - 49 MPs
Penny Mordaunt - 21 MPs
For me, this looks like Johnson will be appointed PM. First, his supporters will be going all out over the weekend to drive up support, make public statements on how he’s the right man and portray this battle as already won for Johnson. This campaign is partly aimed at MPs but principally aimed at the tory party members. Johnson does not need to win on Monday, he just needs to have more than 100 supporters and critically more than Mordaunt.
The 1922 committee hopes to convince the runner up to stand down. Fat chance of that if its Johnson who is second as the tory membership is definitely pro-Johnson. You see this at grass roots levels with claims like “of course he made small mistakes but he got the big calls right” (which is patently not true). Johnson wants the toey member vote as he knows he’ll win that.
Oh forgot peeps don’t like Daily Mail so here’s the BBC’s version:
Only 50 have, so far, declared - Rishi’s supporters outnumber BJ’s 2 to 1 … 
So BJ’s already started by making up a big fat lie. Old habits, eh?
Quite … he speaks, he lies … 
I would love to say I have no interest however their actions or U-turn actions have ramifications on all of us. They are recycling the old guard. I cannot see Rishi Sunak winning and I can’t see that Boris can be voted back in. Penny Mordaunt can’t say I know much about her BUT if the majority are voting for the other two then what chance does she have of uniting the government, ALTHOUGH saying that anyone the conservatives do not vote for has to a better candidate than those, they do given the track record.
No wonder the members would go for Boris as they’re the ones who’ll have to do all the knocking on the doors:
Voters who backed the Tories at the last election would be more likely to vote Conservative again if Boris Johnson becomes the next Prime Minister, a YouGov poll has found.
Polling of 1700 people, done on Thursday and Friday, also found that only 34% of those who voted for the Tories last time would do so again, with 14% saying they would switch to Labour.
The analysis found that among those voters, 68% think Mr Johnson would do a good job as PM compared with 57% for Rishi Sunak.
Those who felt that Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak would do a bad job was considerably lower, at 26% and 28% respectively.
Currently, Rishi Sunak has 114 MPs publicly backing him to be the next Prime Minister while Boris Johnson has 54 and Penny Mordaunt has 23, though it has also been reported that the former PM has 100 supporters.
This comes as Mr Sunak is set to announce his bid for the leadership as Mr Johnson cut his family holiday short to fly back to the UK from the Dominican Republic.
British elections expert and former Vote Leave Chief Executive Matthew Elliott said: 'While Rishi Sunak is disliked less by diehard Labour and Liberal Democrat voters who will never vote Conservative, Boris Johnson remains the overwhelming preference of the voters that the Conservative Party needs to win back to have any hope of winning the next general election.
‘The Conservatives needs to reengage with the coalition of voters they attracted in 2019, and Boris Johnson is best placed to achieve that objective.’
The popularity of Mr Johnson among Conservative voters is also apparent as just 17% think Mr Sunak would do a ‘very good job’ compared with 33% saying the same of the former PM.
Of all nine candidates polled, Boris was the most popular.
The analysis found that Conservative voters are disengaged, with only 59% saying they would definitely vote at the next election, compared with 80% of Labour voters and 77% of Liberal Democrat voters.
Supporters of Rishi Sunak are deeply sceptical of Boris Johnson’s camp claiming he has the support of more than 100 MPs. They are demanding he publishes a list of those who are backing him.
The immediacy of the scepticism is a reminder of what a return to the fray by Mr Johnson represents — passionate, full-throated enthusiasm from those behind him, and cynicism from those who don’t, including on the Conservative benches.
It is also striking that Mr Johnson’s team say their claimed amount of support means he “could” be on the ballot — they are not yet definitively committing to a desire to be so, even if they do have the numbers.
He’s only likely to want to be on the ballot if he’s reasonably confident he can win.
I go by Guido (numbers have been updated since this article).
The spreadsheet has empty green cells indicating MPs who have contacted the site to declare their allegiance but who cannot – for reasons of official position in the party – declare themselves.
Sunak has six backers in this category out of his total of 105, and Boris has 17 out of his total of 69. Ignore this finding if you prefer, but all have been verified and constitute the most complete knowledge to date.
This exchange was broadcast this morning on the BBC’s Today programme.
ROBINSON: “Forgive me, [Rishi Sunak] has broken 100, has he?”
RAAB: “Well, I’m going on the public declarations as recorded by the Guido Fawkes website.”
ROBINSON: “We’re at 93 at the BBC.”
As the old English proverb says: You’re either in front of Guido or you are behind.
Rishi 125, Boris 72
The nominators don’t have to go public, do they?
I read somewhere that MPs can nominate publicly or privately - that does not seem right to me. If I lived in a Constituency that had an MP who voted for Boris Johnson, I would want to know, so I could make sure never to vote for that MP again!
I am pretty certain my constituency MP would not vote for Johnson - because it’s Rishi Sunak!
