The last two days of voting by the parliamentary group offer an uncertain panorama regarding the second position
Rishi Sunak is the clear favorite to form the pair of candidates that will compete to succeed Boris Johnson, after winning a new round of votes from the parliamentary group. With 115 endorsements, he is up 14 from what he had on Friday. Liz Truss goes up, from 64 to 71, and Kemi Badenoch, from 49 to 58. Meanwhile, Penny Mordaunt loses one, from 83 to 82.
Tom Tugendhat, a former military man with no experience in government positions and who has run as the only candidate who has not participated in the governments of Boris Johnson, was yesterday the last eliminated. He was also the only one who voted to remain in the European Union and did not regret it, although he accepts the result. Truss voted to remain and converted to the Brexit cause immediately.
This Tuesday a new vote will be held to eliminate the least voted of the four survivors and on Wednesday, if there are no unforeseen events, the original list of eleven candidates will have been reduced to two. From that moment, the campaign begins for the party members to elect one. The process will culminate on September 5, with the announcement of the new leader.
Sunak and Truss have opted out of further televised debates with the other candidates. They agreed after a tense exchange on Sunday night on ITV television. The 1922 Committee summoned the applicants, to convince them not to persist in confrontations. The “blue against blue” fights show cracks in the party and discredit everyone.
Although the disputes in the debates have resembled the verbal jousts between deputies of the House of Commons, harsh but with rules of courtesy and prohibition of some insults, there were also comical moments. Mordaunt claimed that the others criticized her “because they know I’m the only one who can beat Labour, according to the polls.” The others laughed, because it is false.
Motion of censure
The vote to choose Johnson’s successor was held as the Commons debated and voted on a motion of no confidence in the Government. The acting prime minister could not make sense of the confluence of events. “I have no idea why the leader of the opposition has insisted on presenting a motion today,” he said.
The president of the House, Lindsay Hoyle, interrupted him: “The motion of censure has been presented by your government.” It’s true. Labor Keir Starmer presented last week a motion of censure to the Government and the Prime Minister. The first obliges the Executive to give it priority to be debated. The motion of censure to a minister or a prime minister does not cause that obligation.
Johnson denied him parliamentary time to debate it. And then he introduced the motion that was being debated yesterday. He thus laughed at Starmer’s clumsy strategy, convinced that his parliamentary group would not support the motion. The conversion of politics into spectacle is one of the characteristics of Johnson’s mandate and it is also the case at the beginning of his interim term.
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