Who will be the next UK Prime Minister?

There are 11 MPs standing for the leadership of the UK Conservatives. The winner will become Leader and Prime Minister. I’ve done a summary of them.

	MPs support	Highest office	Entered Parl	Ethnicity	Views
Rishi Sunak	40	Chancellor	2015	Indian	Moderate
Penny Mordaunt	25	Defence Sec	2010		Moderate
Tom Tugendhat	21	Foreign Cmte Chair	2015		Moderate
Liz Truss	17	Foreign Sec	2010		Right
Nadhim Zahawi	15	Chancellor	2010	Iraqi	Moderate
Kemi Badenoch	14	Local Govt Minister	2017	Nigerian	Right
Jeremy Hunt	14	Foreign Sec	2005		Liberal
Suella Braverman	12	Attorney-General	2015	Indian	Right
Sajid Javid	12	Chancellor	2010	Pakistani	Right
Grant Shapps	9	Transport Sec	2005		Moderate
Rehman Chishti	1	Foreign Under-Sec	2010	Pakistani	Moderate

To make the first ballot an MP needs at least 20 MPs to nominate them. So the number of MPs who have said they support a candidate is important. There are 358 MPs.

In the first ballot any candidate who gets fewer than 30 votes drops out.

Then in the second and further ballots the lowest polling drops out until there are two left.

Then those two go to a vote of all members. So the support of MPs is vital to making the final two, but after that it is the vote of the party membership that will decide.

There are four women standing, three of whom have a decent chance. If one of them wins the Conservatives will be ion their third female leader, while Labour will remain at zero.

Six of the 11 candidates are immigrants or children of immigrants. I think it says a lot about a country that people can move there, and they or their children can aspire to the highest office.

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