SOURCE: BBC NEWS
Rishi Sunak will be the UK’s next prime minister after Penny Mordaunt dropped out of the Tory leadership race in the final minutes before nominations closed.
Sunak will succeed Liz Truss seven weeks after she defeated him in the previous Tory contest.
The ex-chancellor gained the support of well over half of Tory MPs, with Mordaunt struggling to reach the threshold of 100 MPs to get on the ballot.
He will become the UK’s first British Asian PM and at 42, the youngest in more than a century.
Labour have reiterated their call for a general election, as have the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats.
Mordaunt affirms support for Sunak as next PM
Penny Mordaunt walks into the 1922 committee of backbench MPs, which Rishi Sunak is about to address, saying she is “good” and “going to support the new PM.”
She entered the room to a rapturous banging of fists on desks — which in Tory MP tradition is a round of applause.