(London) British Conservative MPs vote again on Monday to eliminate one of the five candidates still in the saddle to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in a race that is tense to the point of leading to the cancellation of the third televised debate.
Posted at 8:17 a.m.
The news channel Sky News announced on Monday the cancellation of the debate scheduled for Tuesday evening, after the withdrawal of two of the main candidates: ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak and foreign minister Liz Truss.
According to the channel’s website, the prospect of a third live debate has Conservative MPs fearing that exposing the disagreements between the candidates will weaken the majority.
Sunday evening, the second debate of the campaign gave rise to more lively exchanges than the first, at the start of a decisive week, where only the two finalists will remain in the race, who will be decided by the 200,000 party members during of a postal vote. The result is expected on September 5.
The head of diplomacy Liz Truss – deemed unconvincing during the first debate on Friday – set the tone on Sunday evening by frontally attacking her former colleague in government Rishi Sunak from her first speeches, accusing her of having led the country to ” recession” by raising taxes when he was in charge of finance.
Ex-Defense Minister Penny Mordaunt also attacked the former Chancellor of the Exchequer over the issue, who suggested borrowing to cope with the cost of living crisis which is strangling British households, with record inflation at 9.1% in May.
“That’s socialism,” Rishi Sunak shot back. “Even (former opposition leader) Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t have gone that far! “, he launched, thus returning a qualifier which had been attached to him by a faithful of Boris Johnson.
Sunak in the lead
Mme Truss and Mr. Sunak have been at loggerheads since the start of the campaign.
The 46-year-old candidate is the darling of the Johnson camp, which is convinced that Mr Sunak had been biding his time for months before stepping down on July 4, precipitating the prime minister’s downfall. What supporters of Rishi Sunak deny.
By going on the offensive, Liz Truss tried to catch up, she who in the first two rounds of voting was relegated to third place behind Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak, whose presence in the final does not seem to be in doubt.
According to an Opinium poll of a thousand people on Sunday evening, Rishi Sunak achieved the best performance (24% of respondents), ahead of Tom Tugendhat (19%), Penny Mordaunt (17%), Liz Truss (15%) and Kemi Badenoch (12%).
In an atmosphere overheated both by the stakes and by the heat records announced by the weather forecast, the 358 Conservative deputies are called upon to continue skimming to eliminate one of the five candidates still in the race.
The result is expected around 7 p.m. GMT (3 p.m. EDT). Two final rounds are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Monday, Parliament must also debate a motion of no confidence from the government against itself, which except for a dramatic event presents no risk for the executive. The government triggered the motion to retaliate against a Labor opposition motion which finds it “intolerable” that Boris Johnson remains in power until September.
The government had refused to allow this Labor motion to be presented to Parliament, because of its wording: it concerned confidence in the government and the Prime Minister, which would have forced the deputies to record the fact that they place their confidence to prevent a general election from being called.