Rishi Sunak is UK’s next prime minister as rival drops out of Tory leadership race

Rishi Sunak will become the UK’s next prime minister after key rival Penny Mordaunt dropped out of the Tory leadership race on Monday.

Sunak will be the country’s first British-Asian PM, and the youngest in over 200 years.

Prime Minister Liz Truss will now offer her resignation to King Charles, after which Sunak will be invited by the monarch to form a new government. This is King Charles’ first time inviting a prime minister to form a government.

It was only seven weeks ago that Liz Truss defeated Sunak in a previous Tory contest. But her resignation, 45 days after her win, prompted a new leadership race.

Penny Mourdant was a key rival to Sunak, but she dropped out of the race minutes before nominations came to a close. Her withdrawal followed that of Boris Johnson days before.

But while Sunak garnered strong support from over half of Tory MPs, Mordaunt was struggling to reach the 100-MP threshold to become a valid nominee.

As nominations closed, the chair of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee announced that only one valid nomination was received.