Q&A: What happens next in the Tory leadership contest?

The race for 10 Downing Street enters its final phase on Monday with former chancellor Rishi Sunak the odds-on favourite to become prime minister.

Only the current Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt stands in his way after Boris Johnson dramatically withdrew from the race on Sunday evening. 

The former prime minister claimed he had the nominations needed to make it onto the ballot paper but admitted he could not unite his warring party.

His withdrawal means the contest could be decided by early afternoon on Monday unless both the remaining candidates can get the support of 100 MPs – but how will it work? 

What happens if Penny Mordaunt fails to secure backing of 100 MPs? 

Mr Sunak and Miss Mordaunt will both need to declare their leadership bids by 2pm on Monday and prove they have the backing of 100 Tory MPs. 

At the last count late on Sunday evening, according to BBC News, Mr Sunak boasted 155 backers compared to Miss Mordaunt’s 25. 

However the latter candidate hopes she can scrape through to the ballot by winning over enough Boris supporters to her cause. 

If she fails to do so and Mr Sunak is the only candidate with more than 100 MPs supporting him, he will automatically be named leader of the Conservative Party and the next prime minister of the UK. 

The race for 10 Downing Street enters its final phase on Monday with former chancellor Rishi Sunak (left) the odds-on favourite to become prime minister. Only the current Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt (right) stands in his way after Boris Johnson dramatically withdrew from the race on Sunday evening

At the last count late on Sunday evening, according to BBC News, Mr Sunak boasted 155 backers compared to Miss Mordaunt’s 25

How soon could Mr Sunak be made prime minister? 

Mr Sunak could be announced as Britain’s new prime minister by Monday afternoon. 

If Ms Mordaunt fails to get the backing of 100 MPs by 2pm, Mr Sunak will automatically become leader and secure his place at 10 Downing Street within hours. 

What will happen if both candidates make it onto the ballot? 

However, if both receive the backing of 100 MPs, an indicative vote among MPs will be held at 2pm. 

The result will be announced at around 6pm. If there is a clear favourite among MPs, the candidate with far less support may choose to withdraw. 

If things are tighter or neither candidate opts to bow out, an online vote of Tory party members will go ahead on Friday. 

That vote will close at 11am, the winner of which will be announced leader of the Conservative Party and the next prime minister of the UK. 

How likely is it that Ms Mordaunt will reach the 100 MP threshold? 

With lagging support from MPs, there were serious questions about whether Miss Mordaunt would secure the 100 nominations needed by 2pm today to make it on to the ballot paper.

Earlier in the day, she rejected a plea from Mr Johnson to pull out of the competition and lend him her support by publicly backing the former prime minister.

Sources said, in a sign of his scrambling around for votes, Mr Johnson offered her a Cabinet job in return for her support. Instead she flipped the request on its head and suggested that the former PM pull out and back her in a run-off with Mr Sunak.

The pair are understood to have spoken several times in recent days, with Miss Mordaunt urging Mr Johnson not to run as she believed he was unable to unify the party, a point he conceded last night. 

But Ms Mordaunt, who came third in the leadership race to replace Mr Johnson this summer, had only around 24 MPs publicly backing her yesterday.

Before Mr Johnson’s intervention last night, several MPs had been encouraging her to give her support to another candidate and take many of her backers with her. But last night sources close to Miss Mordaunt insisted she would reach the threshold of 100 MPs and would not pull out of the race.

They told the Mail: ‘The numbers are far better than reported. A lot of our supporters are emailing in their nominations and not publicly declaring.’ 

Will Mr Sunak call a general election?

There are growing calls among Tory MPs, in particular Boris Johnson loyalists, for a general election if Mr Sunak is anointed as prime minister this week. 

Former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said on Sunday that a general election was now inevitable following the withdrawal of Mr Johnson.

She said: ‘Boris would have won members vote – already had a mandate from the people. 

‘Rishi and Penny, despite requests from Boris refused to unite which would have made governing utterly impossible. Penny actually asked him to step aside for her. It will now be impossible to avoid a GE.’

However in an interview with Rachel Johnson on LBC, Ms Dorries said she believes Mr Sunak has no plans to go to a public vote.  

Mr Sunak himself has shown no intention of holding an election to date. 

In a tweet announcing his candidacy, Mr Sunak said: ‘The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis’. 

He vowed to ‘fix our economy, unite our party and deliver for our country’, and that although ‘the challenges we face now are even greater’ than those posed by the pandemic, ‘the opportunities – if we make the right choice – are phenomenal’.

He then referenced the 2019 manifesto, which saw the Tory party win its biggest majority for decades – suggesting he intends to rebuild on his party’s victory. 

He promised there will be ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of government.’

He added: ‘The choice our party makes now will decide whether the next generation of British people will have more opportunities than the last.’

The former PM (pictured arriving at Gatwick Airport on Saturday) tonight said continuing his bid to return to No10 was ‘simply not the right thing to do’

Monday’s tense contest comes after Mr Johnson said there was a ‘very good chance’ he could have been back in No 10 by the end of the week if he had stood.

However he said his efforts to ‘reach out’ to his rivals – Mr Sunak and Miss Mordaunt – to work together in the national interest had not been successful so he was dropping out.

A campaign source for Miss Mordaunt last night confirmed she was still in the running, arguing she is the candidate who Labour fear the most.

‘Penny is the unifying candidate who is most likely to keep the wings of the Conservative Party together and polling shows that she is the most likely candidate to hold onto the seats the Conservative Party gained in 2019,’ the source said.

However one senior minister who was backing Mr Johnson – the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Nadhim Zahawi – said he would now be supporting Mr Sunak.

‘Rishi is immensely talented, will command a strong majority in the parliamentary Conservative Party, and will have my full support and loyalty,’ he tweeted.

With nominations due to close at 2pm on Monday, Ms Mordaunt has limited time to get the necessary nominations. If she fails Mr Sunak will be declared leader without a contest.

Certainly there are some in the party who would like to see an uncontested ‘coronation’ to avoid a repeat of what happened with Liz Truss when the party in the country voted for a leader who did not have the backing of MPs.

Ms Mordaunt could find herself under pressure to withdraw if she finishes a long way behind Mr Sunak in the poll of MPs, even though she is popular with the Tory grassroots.

At the same time however many activists – many of whom loathe Mr Sunak for his roll in bringing down Mr Johnson – will be furious if they are denied a say in the contest.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Mr Johnson said he had been ‘overwhelmed’ by the support he had received from people urging to run just weeks after being forced out by his own MPs after one scandal too many.

If he had stood, he said there was a ‘very good chance’ the members would have voted him back into No 10 by the end of week and that he would have been ‘well-placed’ to lead the party to victory in a general election in 2024.

However he had come to the conclusion that ‘this would simply not be the right thing to do’.

‘You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament,’ he said.

‘And though I have reached out to both Rishi and Penny – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.

‘I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.’

Some MPs were sceptical of his claim to have secured the 100 nominations needed to go forward, with the numbers of public declarations of support falling far short of that.

Some at Westminster suspected that he chose to withdraw rather than face the humiliation of having to admit he could not get the numbers.