In the United Kingdom, who to replace Liz Truss at the head of the country?

British Prime Minister Liz Truss, Thursday October 20, 2022 following her declaration of resignation, at 10 Downing Street, London.

AFP - DANIEL LEAL

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Six weeks in Downing Street: a record of brevity.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned this Thursday, October 20, faced with the impossibility of implementing her program.

The failure of his tax plan led more and more MPs to call for his departure.

The Conservative Party must now once again find a new leader.

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With our correspondent in London,

A quick election is a good way to avoid a fratricidal vote like in the summer, according to Michael Howard, former party leader.

I am very happy that the election is held in a week.

In reality, I hope that there will not even be an election and that everyone will come together behind one person, in order to restore stability and accountability to the head of government.

His preference: Rishi Sunak, beaten by Liz Truss in the last primary.

►Read again: United Kingdom: Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns

Out of the question to go through the legislative box.

But for Brandon Clark Smith, only a deputy has the required legitimacy and his choice does not fall on Mr. Sunak.

Boris Johnson, of course!

It has the legitimacy of the general electorate.

Thanks to him, we won a historic majority of 80 seats.

We need someone who can lift us up in the polls, a winner.

However, the threshold of one hundred referrals complicates Bojo's return.

Charles Walker, exasperated by his party's setbacks, calls his colleagues to blame.

The winner must compose his ministerial team according to skills.

No favors, no cronyism.

If we are in the current mess, it is because the condition for entering the government was to have supported the right candidate.

We have far too many ambitious people in this party whose ambition exceeds their skills.

The candidate or candidates will be known on Monday.

The new Prime Minister will be in office at the end of the week.

And so we're talking about Bojo again

Three months after his departure, some conservatives are already agitated on Twitter around the keyword #BringBorisBack, "Bring Boris back".

A return from Mr. Johnson which, for other Tories, would however be an insult.

Anyway, according to

, the ex-Prime Minister intends to go there!

If so, he may face some of those who were in the running this summer for his succession, and whose names are reappearing.

Rishi Sunak had been defeated in the final stage by Ms. Truss.

This supporter of budgetary orthodoxy was the favorite of Tory MPs, but the faithful of Boris Johnson consider him a traitor whose resignation as finance minister caused the downfall of their champion.

Other potential candidates: the charismatic Penny Mordaunt, Minister of Defense under Theresa May, or even Suella Braverman, the Minister of the Interior who resigned on Wednesday, a very right-wing conservative dreaming of migrant planes leaving for Rwanda.

The rules for being candidates have been known since Thursday: you must be sponsored by at least one hundred Conservative MPs (out of 357).

If three people succeed, the deputies will retain two, who will then submit to the online vote of party members.

International editor,

Once again, everything will happen internally.

But according to the specialist in British institutions Aurélien Antoine, it is a political fault of the Tories who should face a general election instead of appointing a new Prime Minister by themselves.

They play political politics.

Someone very honest and very courageous would say: "Okay, listen, we're going to go back to the voters, we're going to take a jacket, but let's admit that we are useless, that we are no longer able to govern in the eyes of the Conservative Party, that the alternation must be accepted.

»

Aurélien Antoine, professor of public law at Jean Monnet University in Saint-Étienne

Vincent Souriau

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