LONDON | Although he survived a vote of no confidence, Boris Johnson’s position as head of the British government is considered very precarious. In the absence of an obvious successor within the Conservative Party, several names are circulating as possible candidates.
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first Hindu to hold the post, was once the frontrunner but lost ground due to his wealth and his wealthy wife’s tax arrangements, frowned upon amid the power crisis in purchase.
Married to the daughter of an Indian billionaire, Mr Sunak, whose grandparents emigrated from northern India to the UK in the 1960s, was an analyst at Goldman Sachs and then employed in hedge funds. He became an MP in 2015.
This 42-year-old Brexit defender became finance minister in 2020, a key post in the midst of a pandemic, but has been criticized for his insufficient action against soaring prices.
Her outspokenness and willingness to meddle in the culture wars has made Foreign Secretary Liz Truss quite popular with the Tory base.
Ms Truss, 46, was given the delicate post as a reward for her work as Minister for International Trade. In this position, this champion of free trade, who had voted in favor of remaining in the European Union before changing sides, concluded a series of post-Brexit trade agreements.
Former Foreign and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, 55, lost to Boris Johnson in the 2019 party leadership election, in which he ran as the ‘serious’ alternative “.
A comrade of Boris Johnson and David Cameron at Oxford University, Mr Hunt, who taught English in Japan and is fluent in Japanese, was one of the few figures to openly challenge the Prime Minister on Monday. However, he is often considered uncharismatic.
Health Minister Sajid Javid, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver, became a renowned banker and then Boris Johnson’s finance minister. Resigning in 2020, he returned to the government a year ago.
Mr Javid, 52, voted in 2016 to stay in the European Union because of the economic benefits, but later rallied to the cause of Brexit.
Home Secretary Priti Patel, 50, is the most conservative of the ministers. A fervent supporter of Brexit, she also voted against same-sex marriage.
Ms Patel was born in London to a Ugandan-Indian family and took a hard line on immigration. But despite the repeated promises of this convinced Thatcherite, the number of migrants arriving illegally through the Channel continues to increase.
The chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee was the first to announce that he intended to stand if Boris Johnson was ousted from power. A former member of the British Army, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Born of a British father and a French mother, Tom Tugendhat, 48, is perfectly bilingual. He married a Frenchwoman.
Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, Penny Mordaunt was a figure in the campaign for Brexit in 2016 and has since worked to negotiate trade agreements. She is considered a good speaker.
Minister of Education Nadhim Zahawi was born in Baghdad to Kurdish parents in 1967 and immigrated to the UK at the age of 9. He founded the market research company YouGov in 2000, resigned ten years later to enter politics and was elected an MP.
Crowned with the success of the anti-Covid vaccination campaign, which he supervised, he was appointed in September 2021 to Education.
