MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Voting for next Conservative party leader and to replace Boris Johnson begins

Rishi Sunak, who served as chancellor until he stood down last week, is expected to pledge to cut taxes - but only once inflation has been “gripped”.

Voting will get underway this Wednesday for candidates striving to become the leader of the Conservative party and the next British prime minister. So far eleven MPs have put themselves forward to replace Boris Johnson which comes after the party increased the number of nominations needed to make it to the first-round ballot, in order to speed up the election process.

Candidates will need 30, instead of 20 backers to make it into the second round, and so far three have managed it, Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, and Tom Tugenhadt.

A winner will be picked in a postal ballot of around 160,000 Conservative Party members over summer. Party bosses have said they plan to announce the result on 5 September. It comes after Mr Johnson last week announced he would stand down as party leader amid increasing dissent among his MP and mass resignations by his ministers.

Conservative leadership timetable

Tuesday 12 July - nominations to get on the ballot open, closing at 18.00 BST
Wednesday 13 July - first round of voting among Tory MPs
Thursday 14 July - likely date for second round of voting
Monday 18 July - likely date for third round of voting, if required
Thursday 21 July - deadline for deciding final two candidates
Monday 5 September - winner announced

Mr Sunak, who served as chancellor until he stood down last week, is expected to pledge to cut taxes - but only once inflation has been “gripped”.

He will say that, under his leadership, reducing the tax burden would be a “question of 'when', not 'if'”.

Mr Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, who has already said he would reverse the rise in national insurance and cut fuel duty, will pledge measures to boost economic growth.

The other candidates for the party leadership are: former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch; Attorney General Suella Braverman; Foreign Office minister Rehman Chishti; former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt; former Health Secretary Sajid Javid; Transport Secretary Grant Shapps; Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi.

At the last Tory leadership race in 2019, candidates required only eight backers to make it into the first round and only 18 to get to the second.

Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 backbench committee which set out the rules, said the new thresholds had been set to allow “serious candidates” to enter the race while avoiding a “cast of thousands who don't really have a great prospect of progressing”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer criticized the candidates for their tax pledges, accusing them of entering an “arms race of fantasy economics”.

He also accused them of “hypocrisy” for having backed tax hikes that have been introduced during Mr Johnson's time in office.