New Conservative party leader Rishi Sunak is preparing to be confirmed as Britain’s new prime minister on Tuesday after meeting King Charles at Buckingham Palace.
The 42-year-old Sunak will be the youngest prime minister in modern times and also the UK’s first ever non-white leader.
He is due to become the third premier of 2022 after the resignations of both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss during a year of political and economic turmoil.
Truss was holding her final cabinet meeting on Tuesday before making a farewell statement as prime minister outside Number 10.
She will then go to Buckingham Palace for an audience with the King where she will tender her resignation.
Sunak will then be formally appointed prime minister by the monarch and invited to form a government.
The new prime minister is then due to travel to Downing Street where he is scheduled to make a speech on Tuesday morning.
Later he is expected to pick his first cabinet, with senior jobs expected for supporters including Michael Gove, Kemi Badenoch, Oliver Dowden and Suella Braverman. Penny Mordaunt, who ran against Sunak in the Tory leadership contest, is hoping for a major role.
Much attention will be focused on who Sunak picks to run the Treasury after weeks of turmoil in the financial markets following Truss’s “mini” Budget involving £45bn of unfunded tax cuts.
Sunak is being urged by chancellor Jeremy Hunt to unveil a new fiscal plan next week, showing how the government will balance the books and cut debt as a share of gross domestic product in the medium term, ahead of a Bank of England decision on interest rates on November 3.
Sunak faces major challenges including the UK economic downturn and cost of living crisis, the repercussions of Brexit, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Addressing Conservative MPs on Monday, Sunak said the party needed to “unite or die” following its ratings plunge in opinion polls. “We get one shot. No second chances. This is an existential moment,” he added.
Victoria Atkins, a Tory MP who supported Sunak for the Tory leadership, said she was “very, very confident” the new premier would be able to settle the economy down.
“This winter is going to be difficult. I don’t think anyone denies that,” she told Times Radio. “But we need a steady hand on the tiller and Rishi will be very much able to steer us through these very, very difficult waters over the coming months.”
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