In his speech, given behind closed doors to MPs, Sunak said
the party should “unite or die” and vowed he would return the party to the
values of its 2019 manifesto, which helped win the party an 80-seat majority.
Ruling out an early general election, he said he would lead
a government of serious Conservative values and make his first priority
tackling the economic crisis.
Sunak will become prime minister without MPs or members
having voted for him, after Mordaunt pulled out of the race in an apparent acknowledgement
that she had not reached the necessary 100 MP threshold to progress.
Two minutes before the nomination process closed at 2pm,
Mordaunt tweeted that she had pulled out and that Sunak had her “full support”.
Sunak’s other rival, Boris Johnson, pulled out on Sunday night, despite
claiming he had the support of 102 MPs.
Five minutes after Mordaunt’s withdrawal, Sir Graham Brady,
the chair of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, formally announced the
result. “I can confirm that we have one valid nomination, and Rishi Sunak is
elected as leader of the Conservative party,” he said.
Sunak will formally take over as prime minister from Liz
Truss after meeting the King at Buckingham Palace, most likely on Tuesday, at
which point Truss will have served 50 days in the job. It is understood the
King was travelling back to London from his Sandringham estate in Norfolk on
Monday afternoon.
Sunak, the former chancellor who came second in the
leadership contest against Truss in the summer, had secured the backing of more
than half the parliamentary party by Monday morning.
After his victory, waiting MPs gave him a rapturous
reception, with cheers and banging of desks. He told them the party faced “an
existential threat”, with polls showing the weight of opposition to the
Conservatives, and he said his focus would be on “policies and not
personalities”. Guardian
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