- Tuesday, March 11, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Did former British chancellor Rishi Sunak concede defeat a day before the results of his contest with Liz Truss, who won the race on Monday (5), came out?
Speaking to BBC on Sunday (4), he signalled that he has lost the Tory leadership race and that his job “now is just to support a Conservative government”.
He also said that he would continue as a member of parliament and did not rule out running for the post of the Conservative Party leader again.
Truss will succeed Boris Johnson and become the third woman prime minister of the UK after Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) and Theresa May (2016-19). She will take over the reins on Tuesday (6).
The eight-week long campaign was an intense one and Truss emerged as the frontrunner with an emphasis on immediate tax cuts that contrasted Sunak’s idea to delay tax reductions till the inflation came under control.
Sunak has also criticised Truss’s economic plan, saying it would seriously jeopardise the UK’s public finances.
When he was asked about his own plans for the future, Sunak said he looked forward “to supporting the Conservative government in whatever capacity he could.”
On the possibility that he might join the race for leadership in the future, the 42-year-old representative from the constituency of Richmond said, “We’ve just finished this campaign. I’d say… I need to recover from this one.”
