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      Sunak’s Ascent Is a Breakthrough for Diversity, With Privilege

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      Rishi Sunak’s ascent to the prime minister’s office is a significant milestone for Britain’s Indian diaspora. But for many, his immense personal wealth has made him less relatable.LONDON — In northwest London, home to one of Britain’s largest Hindu communities, celebrations for Diwali, a festive holiday, were well underway on Monday. Children tossed small fireworks that popped as they slammed into the sidewalk. Bright lights strung across the street twinkled overhead. Families bought sweets and candles.But many who were gathered with their families said that they suddenly had something new to celebrate — the news that Rishi Sunak, the eldest son of a doctor and pharmacist of Indian descent, will become prime minister, the first person of color to hold Britain’s highest political office.Britain is home to a vibrant and diverse community of people with roots in India, which it ruled as a colony for nearly a century before India won independence in 1947. As many as 1.5 million people of Indian descent live in England and Wales, making them the largest ethnic group after white Britons.That makes Mr. Sunak’s triumph a significant milestone for Britain’s Indian diaspora, whose long struggle against racism and prejudice is rarely a prominent issue in British politics.“We are so proud and happy,” said Hemal Joshi, 43, who lives in northwest London with his wife and son. “I’ve got so many messages from India already. So he has a lot of expectation now from all over the world. Let’s see what he will do.”Mr. Sunak, 42, has always expressed pride in his Indian roots, and he regularly points to his upbringing as the son of immigrants. But he has not put his heritage at the center of his political message, focusing instead on his experience in finance, and the British news media has not dwelled on his ethnicity.Instead, it is Mr. Sunak’s elite education and extreme wealth that have drawn scrutiny — and become something of a political liability in a society famously divided by tensions over class.Mr. Sunak is also a practicing Hindu, and when he took his oath of office as a member of Parliament, he did so on the Gita, a book of Hindu scripture. As chancellor of the Exchequer, he celebrated Diwali, known as the festival of lights, by putting lights outside his official residence at 11 Downing St.Rishi Sunak lighting Diwali candles outside his official residence, 11 Downing Street, in 2020.John Sibley/Reuters“We are very proud and very excited, being Hindus from India,” said Priya Gohil, who was just leaving the temple with her family in the borough of Harrow after offering Diwali prayers. “It’s just very relatable.”What was less relatable to many was the air of privilege attached to him.Mr. Sunak attended the elite Winchester College, a private boarding school in Britain, then went to Oxford University and Stanford. He made a fortune in finance, working for Goldman Sachs and two hedge funds before his political career began. He is also married to Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s wealthiest men.More on the Political Turmoil in BritainBrexit Fault Lines: Some experts link Liz Truss’s downfall to the ripple effect of Britain’s departure from the European Union and the bitter factions it created in her Conservative Party.Boris Johnson Drops Out: The former prime minister pulled out of the race to succeed Ms. Truss, ending a bid to reclaim the job he lost three months ago amid a cascade of scandals.Political Primaries: Are American-style primary elections driving Britain’s dysfunction? The rise and fall of Ms. Truss may hint at deeper changes caused by putting party leaders to a vote.Lifelong Allowance: Ms. Truss is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Skepticism about his wealth has followed him throughout his bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party, though many of his predecessors have also come from privileged backgrounds. The issue remains resonant even after he emerged on Monday as the winner of the contest to lead the country.“I think it’s great that we have a person of color as the prime minister for the first time,” said Shivani Dasani, 22, who was leaving a temple in northwest London. But she added, “He’s a rich, upper-class man, so he can’t speak for the entire community in that way.”Those concerns persisted beyond London’s Indian communities. In some neighborhoods, many people were too busy finishing the workday to even know that Mr. Sunak had been chosen as prime minister. But those who did cited Mr. Sunak’s sizable wealth as one of the only things they knew about him, even as they hoped he would address the problems of inflation and soaring housing prices.Ealing Road in London, on Monday. Some in the British capital said they were hoping that the new prime minister would address the problems of inflation and soaring housing prices.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“He won’t know how normal people live — the working class,” said Samuel Shan, who was sweeping the floor near his fruit and vegetable stall at a market in Dalston, a diverse neighborhood that has become more gentrified in recent years. “We’ll see what he can do for us.”Brano Gabani, a council worker originally from Slovakia, laughed humorlessly as he noted that he had “no choice’’ in the selection of Mr. Sunak. He said he did not know enough about the incoming prime minister’s character to assess him. But, like many others, he pointed to slow wage growth and the rising cost of living as major issues.“Every month we lose salary; we are more poor,” he said. “I want to see him doing something, something for English people.”Narendra H. Thakrar, the chairman of the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir Temple in the Wembley area of London, said he believed that Mr. Sunak was the right man to steer the nation during a time of uncertainty, and that his appeal transcended any particular ethnic or religious community.“There are many difficulties this country is facing at the moment economically, and I think that Rishi Sunak is the right person to take over as prime minister,” he said. “He has proved himself to be a good chancellor, and let’s hope he will do justice to the country. I am sure he will.”Celebrating Diwali at the Shri Santa Hindu Mandir Temple in London on Monday.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesAs he stood alongside the tan, intricately carved sandstone temple on Monday, Mr. Thakrar rejoiced in the confluence of the Diwali holiday and Mr. Sunak’s victory, calling it “a great day.” Mr. Sunak, he said, was “a devout Hindu and he loves his community.”Around the same time, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was congratulating Mr. Sunak and describing the Indian community in Britain as a “living bridge” between the two nations.Zubaida Haque, the former executive director of the Equality Trust, a British charity, said that the pride Mr. Sunak’s victory might inspire needed to be placed in context. While representation matters, “that doesn’t mean that Britain has great social mobility,” she said, pointing to his wealthy upbringing.“It’s still a great achievement that Rishi Sunak will get the top job in this country, but let’s not pretend that racial inequality is no longer a barrier,” she said.Ms. Dasani, who was at the temple in Wembley with her family, expressed a similar sentiment, saying she believed that the earlier leadership race lost by Mr. Sunak brought to light “a lot of racism that still exists in the U.K.”She said she felt that people questioned his Britishness in a way they never did with his white counterparts.Ms. Dasani also cited Conservative Party policies that she said were hostile to immigrants and asylum seekers. Human rights groups, for example, condemned a policy initiated under Mr. Johnson aimed at sending some refugees arriving in Britain to Rwanda.The chairman of the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir Temple said he believed that Mr. Sunak was the right man to steer the nation during a time of uncertainty.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBut she said she still believed that having broader cultural representation on such a prominent stage could have a positive effect on the national psyche.“I think there is a worry among South Asian people in the U.K. that if we are too loud about our culture people will see us as not properly British,” she said. “So I think it is a good thing that he is so open about his culture and his religion.”Halima Begum, chief executive of Runnymede Trust, a research institute focusing on racial equality, called Mr. Sunak’s triumph a defining moment.“It is a poignant and symbolic moment for a grandchild of the British Empire to take up the highest office of the land,” she said.Still, Dr. Begum said that she hoped Mr. Sunak would put his skills as former chancellor to use to address problems affecting minority ethnic groups in Britain, including inflation and rising interest rates that have driven up household mortgages.“The rest of the British public will be looking at what immediate actions Sunak will take to weather the storm,” she said.Mujib Mashal More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Rishi Sunak to Lead Britain

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      Plus Chinese markets react to a stronger Xi Jinping and young Chinese pursue quiet dissent.“We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring my party and country together,” Rishi Sunak said yesterday.Aberto Pezzali/Associated PressRishi Sunak to lead BritainRishi Sunak, who lost to Liz Truss just under seven weeks ago in the contest to lead Britain, will become prime minister today.Sunak, 42, prevailed in a chaotic Conservative Party leadership race yesterday after Penny Mordaunt, his remaining rival, withdrew. Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer and the son of Indian immigrants, will be the first person of color to lead Britain.His immediate challenge: reunite his deeply divided party and rebuild its reputation. Some Tories view Sunak as Boris Johnson’s political assassin — his resignation from Johnson’s cabinet in July led to his boss’s fall and Britain’s political upheaval. And Conservatives lag behind the opposition Labour Party by more than 30 percentage points in polls.Sunak faces profound economic challenges, especially a cost of living crisis. Britain is also reeling from the self-inflicted damage of Brexit and of Truss, whose free-market economic agenda, featuring sweeping tax cuts, upended markets and sunk the pound.What’s next: While Sunak’s warnings about inflation and his fiscal conservatism may have cost him the post in September, his accurate assessments may help undo the damage left by his predecessor. India: Indian news media celebrated his historic ascension, but people were more focused on celebrating Diwali.Reaction: Calls are growing for a broader political reassessment. “I think we should have had a general election because of all the mistakes the previous two prime ministers made,” one woman told The New York Times.A Beijing vegetable market last month. China’s economy has already been dragged down by its commitment to “zero Covid” policies.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesMarkets react to Xi’s consolidationInvestors unnerved by Xi Jinping’s power grab — and the state-heavy agenda of China’s top leader — sent Chinese shares tumbling yesterday.In Hong Kong, share prices plummeted more than 6 percent, reaching 13-year lows as traders dumped huge numbers of shares. In mainland China, markets fell nearly 3 percent, even though Beijing puts heavy pressure on institutional investors not to sell during politically fraught moments. And the renminbi dropped to a 14-year low against the dollar.The heavy selling was particularly striking given that the Chinese government said the economy grew 3.9 percent in the three months that ended in September, from the same period a year earlier. The data, released yesterday, was stronger than expected but still fell short of Beijing’s target of 5.5 percent for this year.Analysis: Xi has put a premium on politics and security — and a stringent “zero Covid” policy — even at the cost of slowing economic growth and employment.Details: The nosedive in financial markets was particularly focused on the shares of Chinese internet companies, which have been a key target of Xi’s campaign to strengthen the Communist Party’s economic control.Background: During last week’s Communist Party congress, Xi pushed out longtime economic policymakers like Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, an architect of the free-market economic boom in southeastern China.A protestor hung banners openly bashing Xi Jinping from Sitong Bridge, in central Beijing.Dake Kang/Associated PressYoung Chinese quietly dissentThis month, a demonstrator unfurled two banners on a highway overpass in Beijing, denouncing Xi Jinping as a “despotic traitor.”China’s censors went to great lengths to scrub the internet of any reference to the act of dissent, prohibiting all discussion and shutting down many offending social media accounts.But the slogans didn’t go away, my colleague Li Yuan writes. Instead, young Chinese, frustrated with censorship, repression and Xi’s “zero Covid” policies, have used creative ways to amplify and spread his message. They graffitied the slogans in public toilets and used Apple’s AirDrop feature to send fellow subway passengers photos of the messages, even though they’re forced to remain anonymous — often from one another.In doing so, members of a generation known for toeing the government line are overcoming their fear of the repressive government, their political depression and their loneliness as political heretics in a society that espouses one leader, one party and one ideology.Context: The protester, who is now viewed as a hero, was last seen being detained by the police. He’s being called the “Bridge Man,” a reference to the “Tank Man,” who stood in front of tanks during the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing in 1989.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificAustralia’s government will release its budget today, Reuters reports. Growth is expected to slow as inflation cuts into consumer spending.North Korea and South Korea exchanged warning shots along a disputed sea boundary, The Associated Press reports.Around the World“They are not preparing to exit now,” a top Ukrainian official said yesterday, of Russian troops. “They are preparing to defend.”Nicole Tung for The New York TimesThere are growing signs that Russia’s occupation government in Kherson is preparing the city for fighting ahead of a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive.Math scores fell in nearly every U.S. state, a sign of the pandemic’s toll.Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, and conservative lawmakers are trying to criminalize incorrect election forecasts after polls underestimated his support. The presidential runoff is on Sunday.Other Big StoriesThe first formal peace talks between Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan rebels are scheduled to begin today in South Africa.Top U.S. executives are heading to a major business conference in Saudi Arabia, despite the Biden administration’s misgivings.OpinionsIn a short documentary, Maria Fredriksson asks: Should Sweden’s tax agency let an Indigenous Sami woman deduct her reindeer-herding dog?Ellen R. Wald, the author of “Saudi, Inc.: The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Profit and Power,” explains why OPEC is cutting oil production.Noam Shuster Eliassi, a comedian who lives in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, lived through a terrorist attack. She realized that not everything can be funny.A Morning ReadPolitical scientists say the pattern shows how white fear of losing status shaped the movement to keep Trump in power.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesIn the U.S., the white majority is shrinking disproportionately fast in districts represented by Republican lawmakers who refused to accept Donald Trump’s defeat.Their constituents also lagged behind in income and education. Rates of so-called deaths of despair, like suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related liver failure, were notably higher as well.Lives lived: Ngo Vinh Long was the most prominent Vietnamese in the U.S. to campaign against the war in Vietnam. He died at 78.CLIMATE FOCUSWhy attack a painting?On Sunday, climate activists in Germany threw mashed potatoes on a painting by Claude Monet, “Grainstacks.” The action came just days after activists in London threw tomato soup on “Sunflowers,” a painting by Vincent van Gogh.The attacks on art, intended to draw attention to climate change, have drawn widespread reaction online. Neither painting was harmed — an intentional choice by the activists. Still, many worried about the paintings’ safety and described the form of protest as misguided.But the dramatic tactic may have a lasting impact, Andreas Malm, the author of “How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire,” argues in a guest essay for the Opinion section. The tactic has historical precedent, he says: Even though paintings are hardly responsible for the climate crisis, the point is to “create enough disorder to make it impossible to ignore the ongoing climate breakdown.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookLennart Weibull for The New York TimesIf you can boil water, slice an onion and use a strainer, you can make niku udon, a Japanese beef noodle soup. It’s Kenji López-Alt’s go-to weeknight dinner.What to Read“The Pachinko Parlor” is a powerful story of dislocation and self-discovery set in Tokyo.The CosmosA solar eclipse will be visible today across Europe and Asia. Here’s how to watch.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tall and thin (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Vox named Zeynep Tufekci, a Times Opinion columnist, to its inaugural list of 50 people working to make the future better.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on election denial in the U.S.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Xi Jinping Consolidates Power

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      Plus Britain prepares for a new leader and Russia forcibly resettles Ukraine’s children.Xi Jinping is poised to push his vision of a swaggering, nationalist China even further, with himself at the center.Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesXi Jinping tightens his gripTo no one’s surprise, Xi Jinping has formally secured a third term as head of China’s Communist Party.He thoroughly shook up the party’s top tiers, elevating loyalists and forcing out moderates. In so doing, Xi consolidated his power and created a new ruling elite primed to elevate his agenda of bolstering national security and turning China into a technological great power. And in a moment packed with symbolism, Hu Jintao, who presided over one of China’s more open and prosperous periods, was ushered out of an important political meeting.Xi chose six men with longstanding ties to him for the Politburo Standing Committee, the top echelon of the party. Wang Huning, his chief theoretician, remains on the body, a sign that hard-line policies and the role of ideology will persist. Xi also appointed to the Politburo, the party’s second tier, a number of domestic security officials and military commanders, as well as several people with backgrounds in science and engineering.As Xi tightens his control, Beijing is likely to remain defiant in the face of international criticism of its authoritarian policies. Notably, at the party congress this week, Xi did not mention two long-repeated maxims about peace and strategic opportunity. The omissions revealed Xi’s anxieties about an increasingly volatile world, and warned of a looming conflict with the U.S. for global dominance.Analysis: To supporters, Xi’s centralized control and continuity are strengths. But some argue that ousting critics could leave Xi’s government vulnerable to failures like its mismanagement during the early days of Covid-19.Standing Committee: New appointees include Ding Xuexiang, Xi’s right-hand man, and Li Qiang, who worked under Xi when they were local officials in Zhejiang Province. Li oversaw a contentious Covid lockdown in Shanghai and is now in line to become China’s new premier.Other updates:For the first time in decades, no women will be on the Politburo.Hu Chunhua, once seen as a potential successor to Premier Li Keqiang, has been sidelined: He’s not in the Standing Committee or the Politburo.From Opinion: Ai Weiwei, an artist and outspoken critic of the Chinese government, argues that the Communist Party has suppressed all possible dissent, despite hopes that capitalism and the internet would create opportunities for rebellion.Liz Truss’s departure plunged Britain deeper into financial uncertainty.Sam Bush for The New York TimesBoris Johnson bows outBritain’s Conservative Party plans to select a new prime minister this week, days after Liz Truss resigned.One thing is for sure: It won’t be Boris Johnson, who was forced to resign as prime minister in July. Johnson pulled out of the race yesterday evening, despite speculation that he was eyeing a return to power.The State of the WarA Looming Crisis: Russia’s stepped-up attacks on infrastructure and vital utility networks in Ukraine herald a new phase of the war — one that threatens millions of Ukrainians with the prospect of a winter without electricity, water and heat in half-destroyed buildings.A New Front?: Russia is massing thousands of troops in its western neighbor Belarus, raising fears that Moscow might plan to open another front in the war. But officials in Kyiv and Washington are casting doubt on whether the buildup represents a serious threat.Occupied Regions: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia declared martial law in four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine as pro-Kremlin authorities in the city of Kherson said they would evacuate tens of thousands of people in advance of a possible Ukrainian counterattack.An Opportunity Ahead: American officials are convinced that the next six weeks, before fall mud spreads, could allow Ukraine’s military to press forward in the Donbas region and potentially retake Kherson.Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer who had lost to Truss, is now the favorite to win. He had lined up at least 147 votes by late afternoon yesterday, according to a tally by the BBC.Sunak could become prime minister as early as today: If only one candidate receives 100 or more nominations from the 357 Conservative members of Parliament, that person will become the next prime minister.Analysis: Some experts link Truss’s downfall to the bitter factions Brexit created in the Conservative Party.A broken window at a hospital in Mariupol, where many resettled children once lived.Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated PressRussia resettles Ukraine’s childrenSince Russia’s invasion started in February, thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia, often against their will, to be adopted and become citizens.Russian authorities have celebrated the adoptions with patriotic fanfare. On state-run television, officials offer teddy bears to new arrivals, who are portrayed as abandoned children being rescued from war.But this mass transfer of children is a potential war crime. Some were taken after their parents had been killed or imprisoned by Russian troops, according to Ukrainian officials. And while many did come from orphanages and group homes, the authorities also took children whose relatives or guardians want them back.“I didn’t want to go,” one 14-year-old girl told my colleague Emma Bubola. “But nobody asked me.” Fighting: Russian forces pounded Ukraine’s power plants with some of the heaviest missile strikes in weeks.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificThe women say that they have suffered lasting trauma from the episode at Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar.Karim Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFive Australian women have sued Qatar two years after they underwent invasive medical procedures when a newborn was found in an airport bathroom.Pakistan’s election commission effectively barred former Prime Minister Imran Khan from office, escalating a political showdown and raising the possibility of mass unrest.Indonesia has banned cough syrup sales amid worries that tainted product from India may be connected to the deaths of dozens of children in Gambia.BTS members can still perform at South Korean national events during their upcoming military service, The Korea Times reports.Around the WorldThe Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Donald Trump for testimony and documents.At least 50 people died when security forces in Chad opened fire on protesters, who were demanding that the military junta stick to a promise to hold elections.Palestinians have moved into caves as Israel tries to expel them from their villages and demolish their homes, which could amount to a war crime. Other Big StoriesSteve Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesSteve Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison for defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena.A U.S. court temporarily blocked the Biden administration from canceling any student debt.Protests, a riot and gunshots: Here’s how a fire at a notorious Iranian prison spread.A Morning ReadTamara Plieshkova, right, feels like “an old, mature tree being replanted into new soil,” her daughter said. Plieshkova reunited with her granddaughter in Colorado after escaping the war in Ukraine in September.Theo Stroomer for The New York TimesThere is a name for the specific type of grief that both refugees and migrants experience. It’s “cultural bereavement.”Lives lived: Peter Schjeldahl, an art critic whose enthusiasm and elegant reviews helped define New York’s art scene, died at 80. Read his witty essay from 2019 on his lung cancer diagnosis.GLOBAL GASTRONOMYNoma in KyotoNoma, the celebrated Danish restaurant, will open a 10-week pop-up in Kyoto, Japan. It will span sakura (cherry-blossom) season and incorporate ingredients and methods from the region, which is the historic center of Japanese Buddhism.The very structure of the meal also references Buddhist culinary traditions. The ubiquitous modern tasting menu has its roots in kaiseki, a carefully orchestrated progression of small plates that grew from a Buddhist tea ceremony into a luxurious cuisine in Kyoto. In the late 1960s, elements of the meal began to flow from Japan into fine dining, often through the influential Tsuji culinary school in Osaka.The conceptual approach to ingredients was partially born in kaiseki, too: Kyoto’s kaiseki menus have always changed to reflect the seasons. That idea has given rise to foraging, restaurant gardens and the farm-to-table movement.“I was taught that the tasting menu was invented by the French and then reinvented in Spain,” René Redzepi, Noma’s chef, told The Times. “I had no idea of the vast repository of ideas and techniques that is Japanese food.”Details: Noma Kyoto will be open from March 15 through May 20. The meal will cost just over 850 euros (about $839) per person and reservations will open on Nov. 7 on Noma’s website.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKate Sears for The New York TimesYou only need one pan for this shrimp scampi with crispy gnocchi.What to Listen toTaylor Swift’s new album, “Midnights,” comments on life as a deeply observed figure.What to Read“Is Mother Dead,” a harrowing Norwegian novel, features a middle-aged painter desperate to reconcile with her estranged parent.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: British baked good (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Best wishes for a great week. — AmeliaP.S. The Concorde made its last commercial flight 19 years ago today.Start your week with this narrated long read about Yiyun Li, a novelist beloved for her powerful distillations of grief. And here’s Friday’s edition of “The Daily,” on Liz Truss’s downfall.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Race for U.K. Prime Minister Heats Up as Nominations Roll In

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      Conservative Party lawmakers have so far put more weight behind Rishi Sunak to be their next leader, but Boris Johnson is still in the fight to reclaim Downing Street.LONDON — The competition to replace Liz Truss as Britain’s prime minister intensified on Sunday, with Rishi Sunak pulling ahead in the scramble for votes of Conservative lawmakers, but Boris Johnson mounting a lively campaign to reclaim the job he gave up three months ago amid a cascade of scandals.Mr. Sunak, who formally declared his candidacy with a promise to “fix our economy,” had lined up at least 144 votes by early Sunday afternoon, according to a tally by the BBC, more than double the 56 votes pledged to Mr. Johnson. A third candidate, Penny Mordaunt, had 23.Beyond the numerical advantage, Mr. Sunak has picked up significant endorsements from people on the right flank of the Conservative Party. On Sunday morning, Steve Baker, a lawmaker who represents an influential group of euro-skeptics in Parliament, announced he would support Mr. Sunak.“Boris Johnson would be a guaranteed disaster,” Mr. Baker told Sophy Ridge of Sky News. “We cannot allow it to happen.”That is important because it suggests that not only do party leaders view Mr. Johnson as an intolerable risk, they also believe that Mr. Sunak, who served as chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr. Johnson, could bridge some of the bitter ideological fissures in the party, which were deepened by Ms. Truss’s turbulent six weeks in office. In the last contest, many figures on the party’s right flocked to Ms. Truss, which put her in a good position to beat Mr. Sunak.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.Under the rules set out by the party, candidates are required to have nominations from at least 100 of the 357 Conservative lawmakers to advance to a second round of voting, among rank-and-file members of the party.Candidates have until 2 p.m. Monday to gather nominations. On Monday, the party will hold two rounds of voting to winnow the field to one or two. If two remain, party members will cast online ballots later in the week.Boris Johnson on Saturday at Gatwick Airport near London after returning from a vacation.Henry Nicholls/ReutersIf Mr. Johnson can drum up 100 nominations, it would significantly raise his odds of returning to Downing Street, as opinion polls suggest he would win the vote among members. Allies of the former prime minister insist he already has those 100 votes, but political analysts have expressed skepticism, noting that barely half that number have publicly declared their intention to back him.Mr. Johnson did receive a notable endorsement from a member of his last cabinet, Nadhim Zahawi, who served briefly as chancellor of Exchequer after the resignation of Mr. Sunak. Mr. Sunak’s departure helped set in motion the wholesale walkout of ministers that finally toppled Mr. Johnson.“When I was Chancellor, I saw a preview of what Boris 2.0 would look like,” Mr. Zahawi wrote on Twitter. “He was contrite & honest about his mistakes. He’d learned from those mistakes how he could run No10 & the country better.”In July, Mr. Zahawi was among those urging Mr. Johnson to resign. “The country deserves a government that is not only stable, but which acts with integrity,” he wrote in a letter to his boss. “Prime Minister, you know in your heart what the right thing to do is, and go now.”Mr. Johnson, who flew home on Saturday from a vacation in the Dominican Republic to begin lobbying lawmakers, has yet to formally declare his candidacy. But another of his former ministers, Jacob Rees-Mogg, told the BBC that he had spoken with Mr. Johnson, and that he would “clearly stand.”Ms. Mordaunt, who officially threw her hat in the ring on Friday, is viewed as unlikely to advance past the first round of voting. But she insisted on Sunday that she, too, was confident of lining up more than 100 lawmakers.Penny Mordaunt on Sunday in London. She declared on Friday that she would stand in the leadership race.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressBritish newspapers reported that Mr. Johnson was seeking to strike a deal with Mr. Sunak to join forces in a unity ticket, and that the two had met on Saturday. But the shape of such a ticket was unclear, given Mr. Sunak’s large lead among lawmakers, and the animosity between the two men makes any cooperation look far-fetched.In the statement announcing his candidacy, Mr. Sunak said his experience as chancellor would equip him to lead Britain through the economic challenges that loom. He promised a government of “integrity, professionalism, and accountability,” drawing a clear comparison to the ethical failings of Mr. Johnson’s tenure.The success of Mr. Sunak’s message will hinge on how lawmakers weigh that against their own electoral fortunes. The Conservatives are trailing the opposition Labour Party by more than 30 percentage points in polls. Though the Conservative Party’s steep erosion in support began under Mr. Johnson, he is still viewed by many as a proven vote-getter after his landslide victory in the 2019 general election.Mr. Rees-Mogg, repeating the claim that Mr. Johnson had more than 100 votes, described him as the party’s “greatest electoral asset,” contending that only he could engineer a victory over the Labour Party. More

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      How Political Primaries Drive Britain’s Dysfunction

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      In the United States, too, the rise of inside-party primaries has empowered candidates at the extremes, and the result is likely to be a greater disconnect with the public.The rise and fall of Liz Truss, Britain’s six-week prime minister, embodies a seismic and long-mounting change in British politics, though its cause and consequences may not always be obvious.Ms. Truss was only the fourth British leader to win the job through a particularly American practice newly common in her country: a party primary.As in most parliamentary democracies, British parties, for most of their history, chose their leaders, and therefore the prime minister, through a poll of party officials.But in recent elections, Britain has shifted that power to party bases, which now select party leaders in elections somewhat like those held in the United States for party nominations.This was intended to empower voters over back-room party bosses, elevating politicians who would be more representative and therefore more electable. But the consequences have been very different.As in the United States, British primary voters tend to be more ideologically fervent and less inclined to moderation than are party bosses or even the median party supporter, surveys find.This has, in both countries, tended to elevate candidates who are more extreme, with research suggesting that the effect has been to make politics more polarized and dysfunctional. Ms. Truss, and the policies that seemingly ended her brief tenure, have become prime examples.Britain’s Conservative Party selects leaders first by winnowing down candidates in the traditional way: voting among party lawmakers. In four out of five such rounds, Ms. Truss was only the third-most selected candidate. In the fifth round, she came in second to Rishi Sunak, who is seen as more moderate.But, since 2001, the party has put its final two leadership candidates to a vote among dues-paying members. Ms. Truss’s libertarian ideas were seen as risky and extreme among party officials. But they were embraced by primary voters, who chose her over Mr. Sunak.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.Those voters — about 172,000 of them — bear little resemblance to the average Briton. Roughly two in three are male. Two in five are 65 or older, double the proportion in the general population. Three in four voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, compared with only 52 percent of Britons, and 58 percent of all Conservative supporters.Ms. Truss’s economic ideas may have wooed those primary voters, but her policies, and the economic shudder that followed them, alienated much of the rest of the country. Even many Conservative supporters, most of whom do not qualify to vote in primaries, told pollsters that they intended to vote for other parties.In this case, the political shift brought about by primary voters’ pull toward an extreme was stark and, with Ms. Truss having resigned under party pressure, ultimately brief.But it is of a piece with what a growing body of political science research suggests are deeper and longer-term changes brought about by the rise of party primaries in a few democracies.A Quietly Seismic ShiftDavid Cameron, a former British prime minister, deepened his party’s commitment to primaries.Pool photo by ReutersBritain’s first leadership primary open to party members was held by Labour in 1994, part of an effort by that party to emphasize a connection to everyday citizens.The Conservatives followed in 2001, responding to deep election losses, said Agnès Alexandre-Collier, who studies British party politics at the University of Burgundy in France. Conservatives also began holding primaries for some individual seats in Parliament.This was intended to elevate Conservative politicians, Dr. Alexandre-Collier said, who would be “more modern, closer to the people, more in touch with the population, because the Conservatives were seen to be disconnected, out-of-touch elites.”Primaries were a relatively untested concept in Europe. The United States had only begun inviting voters into the process of selecting party nominees in the 1970s and ’80s.American party officials had long used control over nominations to block candidates who did not embrace party orthodoxy — and, often, to bar racial and religious minorities. Many Americans objected to this as undemocratic and divisive, pressuring parties to open up.In Britain, it was David Cameron, then the Conservative leader, who in 2009 deepened his party’s commitment to primaries, surrendering party control over nominations in dozens of races.“This will have a transformative effect on our politics, taking power from the party elites and the old boy networks,” he said at the time. A year later, he became prime minister.But in both the United States and Britain, primaries brought other changes, too.Party officials tend to overwhelmingly prefer moderate candidates over ideological ones, research has found. This holds true even in uncontested districts, suggesting that the preference runs deeper than electability considerations.To activists looking to push their parties further left or right, this can look like a conspiracy to block change. To parties, it is often intended to enforce internal unity and cohesion, as well as what is known in European politics as the “cordon sanitaire,” or an informal ban on extremists and demagogues.As primaries have shifted power from parties to the rank-and-file, these barriers have fallen away.This has also granted individual lawmakers greater independence, allowing them to more freely buck party positions — but binding them to primary voters’ desires instead.How Primaries Change PoliticsJeremy Corbyn won a Labour Party leadership vote in 2015 thanks to primary voters.Jessica Taylor/Agence France-Presse, via U.K. Parliament/AFP via Getty ImagesMr. Cameron quickly saw his party fill with rebellious lawmakers who had won primaries by championing a position that party insiders had opposed: leaving the European Union.At the same time, Mr. Cameron faced the prospect that, in any future leadership contest, his fate would be up to primary voters who also favored this policy. In 2016, partly as an effort to stave off these threats, Mr. Cameron held the referendum that ultimately resulted in Britain’s departure from the union.This is why some political scientists now argue that a straight line can be drawn from the Conservatives’ use of primaries, and the power it handed to a small and ideologically committed faction of voters, to Brexit.Britain’s Labour Party has also changed.Jeremy Corbyn, a left-wing lawmaker long at odds with his party’s leadership, won a leadership vote in 2015 thanks to heavy support from primary voters.But Mr. Corbyn took a soft line on Brexit, which saw his party’s support drop in polls and angered party officials who wanted Labour to champion a policy of remaining in Europe.Still, even as Labour officials tried to eject Mr. Corbyn, primary voters kept him in power. During his five-year leadership, Labour failed to win a majority although Conservatives struggled through leadership crises and economic turmoil.“Internal democracy can undermine a party’s ability to select candidates who can win general elections,” Georgia Kernell, a U.C.L.A. political scientist, wrote in a Washington Post essay, referring to Mr. Corbyn.“Party activists rarely represent the population,” she added. “Nor do they often represent the party’s own voters.”Weaker PartiesWhen Donald J. Trump was running his primary campaign, Republican officials tried to stop his rise.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesIn perhaps the most famous case of primary voters overruling party officials, Republican leaders repeatedly attempted to halt Donald J. Trump’s rise in their party’s 2016 primary.Those who have not subsequently fallen in line, like Representative Liz Cheney, who called Mr. Trump a threat to democracy, have often seen their careers ended by primary challenges.“It’s counterintuitive, but democratizing parties will ultimately harm democracy,” Jennifer N. Victor, a George Mason University political scientist, wrote in 2018, just as Democrats announced changes to curtail party bosses’ influence over primary nominations.“Democracy requires institutional forces of coordination to enforce collective action,” Dr. Victor said. “It comes in many forms. All of them can be called leadership.”“Without them,” she added, “we’re all just in ‘Lord of the Flies.’”Still, in countries where voters now expect to select their party’s leaders, reverting that authority back to party insiders, even if their choices were sometimes more representative of the electorate, would surely feel to citizens like an unacceptable loss of democratic rights.Voter-led primaries remain unusual in the world.One exception was, briefly, France, whose two traditionally dominant parties held primaries for nominations to the 2017 presidential contest.Voters in France’s right-wing party, which had been expected to win, chose a scandal-plagued candidate who was friendly with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and who lost. The winner of the left-wing party’s primary went on to take only 6 percent of the national vote.“This experiment was seen as an absolute failure,” Dr. Alexandre-Collier said. “It gave priority to the most populist leaders,” she added, as primaries have tended to do across countries.Both parties quietly ended the practice, returning candidate selection in France to party officials. More

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      How Tumultuous Forces of Brexit Divided U.K.’s Conservative Party

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      Some experts link Liz Truss’s downfall to the ripple effect of Britain’s departure from the European Union and the bitter, ideologically opposed factions it created in her party.LONDON — When Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain resigned on Thursday after only 44 days in office, she spoke almost wistfully about how the collapse of her economic plans meant she would never achieve her goal of creating a “low-tax, high-growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.”Her nostalgia for Britain’s exit from the European Union might be misplaced, at least when it comes to her Conservative Party. Brexit is the fault line that runs through Ms. Truss’s ill-fated attempt to transform Britain’s economy, just as it ran through Prime Minister Theresa May’s doomed government, and David Cameron’s before hers.Except for Boris Johnson, who was forced out because of scandals related to his personal conduct, the forces unleashed by Brexit have undone every Conservative prime minister since 2016. They have also severely divided the party, creating bitter, ideologically opposed factions seemingly more interested in warring with each other than in governing a country with the world’s sixth-largest economy.Ms. Truss’s calamitous tenure, critics said, is the most extreme example of post-Brexit politics that have now brought the Conservatives to crisis. In the process, it has damaged Britain’s economic standing, its credibility in the markets, and its reputation with the public, which is watching a leadership contest that may return Mr. Johnson to the helm of a party that tossed him out only three months ago.Prime Minister Liz Truss after announcing her resignation on Thursday at Downing Street in London.Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The Conservatives are never going to recover the coherence that will make for good governance,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University. “This is a party that is tearing itself apart.”He traced the party’s unraveling from the 2016 referendum, called by Mr. Cameron, through Mrs. May’s futile efforts to craft a softer form of Brexit, to the uncompromising “hard Brexit” of Mr. Johnson, and finally to Ms. Truss’s experiment in trickle-down economics, which he said bore all of the hallmarks of Brexit thinking, from the derision of expert opinion to the disregard of Britain’s neighbors and the market.“It’s taking the logic of Brexit to the absurd,” said Professor Garton Ash, who has long lamented the vote to leave.Ms. Truss’s tax cuts made Britain an outlier among Western countries, but the factionalism of post-Brexit Britain plagues other European countries, from Italy to Germany, as well as the United States, where some may view the potential return of Mr. Johnson as a harbinger for another restless populist, Donald J. Trump.In announcing her trickle-down policies, Ms. Truss was an evangelist for a particular model of Brexit, an agile, fast-growing, lightly regulated Britain that its backers once branded Singapore-on-Thames. Whether that is a viable economic construct was never tested. Her policies were swiftly rejected by the markets because they were judged to be reckless at a time of double-digit inflation.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.But Ms. Truss faced equally hostile forces within her own cabinet, which are fueled by the same nationalistic passions that drove Brexit.Suella Braverman, the home secretary whom Ms. Truss fired last week ostensibly for violating security rules, attacked Ms. Truss for abandoning the party’s promise to cut down immigration numbers. The prime minister talks tough about illegal immigrants, too, but her policies were shaping up to be more moderate because she believes new arrivals are needed to accelerate Britain’s growth.The clash between Ms. Truss and Ms. Braverman was part of a bigger clash between rival camps in the party — a free-market, libertarian wing, exemplified by the prime minister, and a hard-line anti-immigration wing, represented by Ms. Braverman. Those views, Ms. Braverman argues, are critical to retaining the loyalty of working-class voters in the north of England, who used to back the Labour Party but who propelled the Conservatives to a landslide general election victory in 2019.Suella Braverman, a Conservative Party hard-liner on immigration.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockThe party also has a centrist faction — personified by Ms. Truss’s chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt — which embraces small-government, business-friendly policies that predate Brexit. The centrists regained some influence after the market’s repudiation of Ms. Truss, when she was forced to hand over the Treasury to Mr. Hunt and the home office to one of his allies, Grant Shapps.Some major party figures, like Rishi Sunak, who served as chancellor under Mr. Johnson and is expected to run in next week’s leadership contest, do not fit neatly into a single group. He voted in favor of Brexit but opposed Ms. Truss’s tax cuts, warning that they would cause havoc in the markets.Quarrels over Britain’s relationship with Europe date back decades in the Conservative Party, of course. Mr. Cameron had little choice but to resign after failing to persuade voters to reject a motion to leave in his referendum. Mrs. May was forced out by her party’s lawmakers after trying to strike compromises with the European Union that made her look, to some, as too conciliatory.With Mr. Johnson having led Britain out of the European Union in 2020, the battles are now over how to shape its post-Brexit society. But they still revolve to a great degree around Europe-related issues, like the flow of asylum seekers across the English Channel or trade rules in Northern Ireland. Pressure from the party’s hard-liners forced Mr. Johnson and Ms. Truss to toughen their approach to Northern Ireland, for example.“The factions are on display in this leadership campaign,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. “But this is now on a bigger scale and profoundly affects what was once the incredible adherence of the Conservative Party to common-sense and pragmatism.”It also helps explain why Mr. Johnson, who only six weeks ago left Downing Street under a wreath of scandal that prompted a wholesale mutiny of Conservative lawmakers and a mass walkout of his ministers, suddenly finds himself a plausible candidate to retake control of the party. He returned on Saturday from a vacation in the Dominican Republic to lobby lawmakers for votes.Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is one of three top contenders to replace Ms. Truss as prime minister.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressMany Conservative lawmakers, fearful of losing their seats in the next general election, yearn for the political magic of “Get Brexit Done,” the upbeat slogan that Mr. Johnson used to unite the party’s affluent southeastern suburbanites with the so-called red wall voters in the Midlands and north. They are willing to accept Mr. Johnson, even with his ethical flaws, for the big-tent appeal he once commanded.“The advantage that Boris has is that he’s not interested in these factions,” Professor Travers said. “He’s not interested in ideology but in power. And the reason the members want him back is because they think he can help them stay in power.”As prime minister, Mr. Johnson did not hesitate to exploit populist passions. His government began the practice of putting asylum seekers on flights to Rwanda, drawing condemnation from human-rights lawyers and activists.But Mr. Johnson also oversaw a costly state intervention in the economy to insulate people from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. And his signature program involved spending hundreds of billions of pounds on high-speed trains and other projects to “level up” corroded cities in the north with more prosperous London.Ms. Truss said comparatively little about leveling up. One of the first moves made by her first choice as chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, was to scrap a limit on bonuses paid to bankers, a move intended to appease London’s financial district.The problem for Mr. Johnson, if he were to run and win, is that he would have far fewer financial resources this time around to govern as a big-state Conservative. Mr. Hunt has warned that the government will have to make “eye-wateringly difficult” decisions about which programs to cut. Britain’s need to rebuild its shattered credibility with investors will require strict fiscal discipline.Jeremy Hunt represents a centrist faction of the Conservative Party.Henry Nicholls/ReutersBritain’s economic troubles, experts say, cannot be blamed wholly or even mainly on Brexit. While its departure from the European Union has tightened the labor market and hampered trade, Britain’s growth never recovered after the financial crisis of 2008. Its depleted public services are a legacy of the austerity of Mr. Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, which predated Brexit.Still, the often-ruthless tactics of the “Vote Leave” campaign, critics say, planted the seeds for the Truss government’s mishandling of economic policy. Campaigners for Brexit famously argued that the country should ignore experts who warned that leaving the European Union would exact a high cost. They brandished spurious figures about the cost for Britain of remaining in the bloc.This experts-be-damned philosophy was the underpinning of Ms. Truss’s economic plan. When Mr. Kwarteng announced the tax cuts, he refused to submit them to scrutiny by the government’s independent watchdog. He fired the most senior civil servant at the Treasury, Tom Scholar, a sign of his disdain for economic orthodoxy.“It wasn’t so much the fact of Brexit, or even the referendum itself, but the dishonesty of the referendum campaign,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London. “They took a lesson from that, which was that dishonesty and trashing institutions was a way to success.” More

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      Auge y caída de Liz Truss en la escena política del Reino Unido

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      Cuando solo habían transcurrido un poco más de seis semanas del inicio de su gestión, la primera ministra británica anunció su renuncia.LONDRES — El colapso político de Liz Truss concluyó con el anuncio de su renuncia el jueves 20 de octubre, poco más de seis semanas después de haberse convertido en la primera ministra del Reino Unido. Sus planes trastabillaron, su propio partido le dio la espalda y proliferaron los pronósticos de comentaristas de todos los ámbitos de que no podría sobrevivir más tiempo que una lechuga fresca. Y así fue.Truss reiteró su determinación de vadear la tormenta política a pesar del clamor generalizado que pedía su renuncia. Por desgracia, la presión aumentaba minuto a minuto… hasta que, en cierto momento, se percató de que no había salida.Si necesitas ponerte al día, a continuación te presentamos una síntesis de los hechos básicos.¿Quién es Liz Truss y cómo se convirtió en primera ministra?El 6 de septiembre, Truss fue designada para remplazar a Boris Johnson, quien fue elegido por los votantes en 2019, pero sufrió una espectacular caída tras una serie de escándalos que no le dejaron más remedio que abandonar el cargo en julio.Los ciudadanos no eligieron a Truss, sino que ascendió al poder gracias a su triunfo en una contienda interna del Partido Conservador para convertirse en su dirigente. Para elegir al sustituto de Johnson, los miembros del partido en el Parlamento seleccionaron, de entre un grupo de candidatos, solo a dos. Estos dos candidatos se sometieron a una votación en la que participaron alrededor de 160.000 miembros del partido que pagan su afiliación (se trata de un grupo nada representativo de una nación de 67 millones de residentes, pues en su mayoría son varones de edad avanzada, blancos y de clase media).Truss, de 47 años, fungió como secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores durante el gobierno de Johnson. Favorecía medidas políticas agresivas, era partidaria del libre mercado y, tras cambiar de opinión, apoyó el brexit, con lo que se ganó al bando de derecha del partido a pesar de su pasado más moderado (antes de integrarse al Partido Conservador, perteneció al Partido Liberal Demócratas, un movimiento de centro, durante sus años de estudiante en la Universidad de Oxford).¿Cómo empezó su declive?Nunca fue una tarea fácil. Cuando Truss asumió el cargo, la nación enfrentaba un panorama económico desastroso, especialmente porque se esperaba que los costos de la energía se elevaran un 80 por ciento en octubre y que volvieran a subir en enero. Esta situación amenazaba con condenar a millones de británicos, que ya sufrían los efectos de la inflación y otros problemas, a condiciones de pobreza extrema que les imposibilitaran calentar su hogar o usar electricidad.Así que, cuando los planes económicos que tanto promovió empeoraron esos problemas, el descontento masivo no se hizo esperar.Sus planes de recortes fiscales, desregulación y uso de préstamos causaron tal alarma entre los inversionistas de todo el mundo, que el valor de la libra británica cayó a niveles récord con respecto al dólar. El Banco de Inglaterra tomó medidas para apuntalar los bonos soberanos, en una intervención extraordinaria con la intención de calmar a los mercados.Esta respuesta demostró que sus ambiciones de libre mercado eran insostenibles. En una decisión humillante, esta semana se vio obligada a revertir casi todos los recortes fiscales, incluido uno aplicable al grupo de mayores ingresos que fue objeto de muchas críticas. Despidió a Kwasi Kwarteng, el ministro de Hacienda encargado de preparar el plan y su aliado cercano, y adoptó políticas económicas promovidas por el Partido Laborista, el partido de oposición.“No es posible dar un giro total como el que ella dio y esperar que tu credibilidad política se mantenga”, dijo Jon Tonge, profesor de política en la Universidad de Liverpool.¿Cómo puso en peligro su cargo?Sus concesiones no lograron apaciguar la rebelión que se propagaba dentro de su propio partido que, como le sucedió a Johnson, tenía el poder para derrocarla.Los conservadores (también conocidos como tories), que ya habían sufrido una marcada caída en sus índices de popularidad en la opinión pública tras los escándalos de Johnson, vieron sus estadísticas hundirse a profundidades impresionantes con los tropiezos de Truss. Una encuesta dada a conocer por Redfield & Wilton Strategies esta semana reveló el porcentaje de aprobación más bajo registrado en la historia para un primer ministro: el 70 por ciento de la población ve con malos ojos a Truss y ese porcentaje incluye al 67 por ciento de los conservadores.Si se celebraran elecciones generales el día de hoy, el 56 por ciento de los votos favorecerían al Partido Laborista, mientras que el 20 por ciento de los electores votarían por el Partido Conservador, según la encuesta.El descontento del Partido Conservador con Truss llegó a su clímax y se vio envuelta en un ambiente palpable de crisis. El miércoles 19 de octubre, explotó en una lucha frenética por su supervivencia. En pleno bombardeo de preguntas de los miembros del Parlamento, declaró: “Siempre lucho, no me doy por vencida”.Entonces, sobrevino una oleada de caos. Suella Braverman, la ministra británica del Interior, que se vio obligada a renunciar a causa del uso indebido de su correo electrónico, aprovechó su carta de renuncia para criticar a Truss, expresando “inquietud por la dirección que ha tomado este gobierno”. Además, una votación sobre el tema de la fracturación hidráulica en el Parlamento se transformó, según la información que circula, en una escena de hostigamiento, gritos, maltrato físico y lágrimas. Más conservadores del Parlamento expresaron abiertamente su deseo de que Truss renunciara al cargo. Y empezaron a correr rumores sobre renuncias al más alto nivel. En ese contexto, resultaba difícil tener información actualizada.“En resumen, es un caos total, absoluto y abyecto”, dijo un presentador de noticias en iTV. Charles Walker, un legislador conservador, no se contuvo en una entrevista en la BBC.El jueves, Truss anunció que había entregado su renuncia al rey y que el plan era elegir una nueva dirigencia en el plazo de una semana.¿Y ahora qué?Los conservadores planean elegir al próximo primer ministro la próxima semana. (Aquí ofrecemos un listado de los candidatos favoritos).El partido ha optado por un proceso simplificado que fue diseñado para evitar una campaña larga. Los candidatos deben recibir 100 nominaciones entre 357 legisladores conservadores antes de las 2:00 p.m. del 24 de octubre. Si solo un candidato alcanza el umbral, esa persona se convertirá en el primer ministro.Si dos candidatos logran las 100 nominaciones, los legisladores votarán para indicar cuál tiene más apoyo. Si el finalista del segundo lugar no se retira, los aproximadamente 160.000 miembros del partido votarán en una encuesta en línea que finaliza el viernes.Si tres candidatos cruzan el umbral, la votación de los legisladores que se celebrará el 24 de octubre eliminará a un candidato, y los dos primeros clasificados avanzarán a la votación en línea.El candidato ganador será el segundo líder consecutivo del Reino Unido que no ha sido escogido en elecciones generales. Truss seguirá siendo primera ministra hasta que su sucesor sea elegido.Las próximas elecciones generales, en las que podrán participar todos los ciudadanos y el Partido Laborista tendrá una nueva oportunidad para tomar el control, están programadas para enero de 2025, a más tardar. El dirigente conservador podría convocar a elecciones antes, pero no sería nada lógico hacerlo pronto, pues las encuestas indican que el partido sufriría una derrota arrasadora frente al Partido Laborista.Tonge subrayó que una ventaja que tienen los conservadores es el tiempo. En teoría, el partido podría recuperar su credibilidad si la economía se recupera en los siguientes años, señaló.“No creo que el cambio de liderazgo garantice que los conservadores se salven”, aseveró. “Pero es posible que sea una buena medida para limitar los daños”.Daniel Victor es un reportero de temas generales radicado en Londres; ha reportado desde Hong Kong y Nueva York. Se unió al Times en 2012. @bydanielvictor More

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      Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak Among Top Contenders to Replace UK Prime Minister

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      Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the man who helped oust him from his job, the former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, are seen as two of the top contenders within the governing Conservative Party.LONDON — The race to succeed Liz Truss as Britain’s prime minister was already gathering pace on Friday morning, potentially pitting the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, against the man who helped oust him from Downing Street just a little more than three months ago, the former finance minister, Rishi Sunak.Penny Mordaunt, now a senior minister, was also seen as a serious potential contender in an election that will be conducted within the governing Conservative Party, which controls the government and can select a prime minister without calling a general election.The next government leader faces a formidable task as Britain heads into an economic slowdown with inflation surging, borrowing costs rising and a winter likely to be dominated by labor strikes and worries about energy supplies.Ahead of what could be a head-on battle against Mr. Johnson, Mr. Sunak’s supporters are presenting him as the safe pair of hands, the man who can restore stability following the crisis precipitated by Ms. Truss’s government when it announced unfunded tax cuts last month, sending financial markets into a tailspin. The British pound plummeted and borrowing costs soared.Less than seven weeks after she took office, Ms. Truss resigned on Thursday — the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.This summer, after Mr. Johnson was forced to resign, Mr. Sunak ran to succeed him but lost out to Ms. Truss. During that leadership contest he gave a prophetic warning of the risks of her economic program, including the tax cuts that ended up rattling the markets.So the appointment of Mr. Sunak, an experienced former chancellor of the Exchequer, might reassure financial markets enough to give a new government more leeway when it comes up with a new budget plan.“Rishi is the experienced leader to sort the economy, lead effectively, get us back into political contention and unite the Party and country,” wrote Bim Afolami, a Conservative lawmaker, on Twitter.Rishi Sunak, one of the possible candidates for prime minister, meeting with supporters in August in Birmingham, England.Susannah Ireland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the prospect of an extraordinary return for Mr. Johnson, who left Downing Street less than two months ago under a sizable cloud, has galvanized the looming contest.Reinstalling him would be a risk for the Conservative Party because he quit after a succession of ethics scandals and is still being investigated by a parliamentary committee over claims he misled lawmakers about lockdown-busting parties at his Downing Street office and residence.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.Mr. Johnson has been on a Caribbean vacation. But his father, Stanley Johnson, did little to dispel the impression that his son was preparing a comeback attempt. He told Britain’s ITV television network on Friday: “I think he’s on a plane, as I understand it.”By the time he left office, Mr. Johnson, always a polarizing figure, was deeply unpopular with voters, according to opinion polls. He tarnished his party’s reputation and dozens of members of his government resigned.But since then, the Conservative Party’s support has collapsed. A new opinion poll showed the party plunging to a new low in support of just 14 percent.Mr. Johnson’s supporters argue that because he won a landslide election victory in 2019, he has a mandate from the voters, and his brand of optimism could help rally the Conservatives.If he were to run, he would be seen as the clear favorite as he remains popular among party members who could make the ultimate decision.Boris Johnson on his last day in office in September.Leon Neal/Getty ImagesIt was they who, during the summer, rejected Mr. Sunak in favor of Ms. Truss when the two reached the final stages of the last leadership contest. One of the main reasons for his failure was the perception among party members that Mr. Sunak betrayed Mr. Johnson by resigning from his cabinet, prompting the crisis that destroyed his leadership.Even before formal declarations by any candidates, their allies were canvassing lawmakers, who in some cases offered their public support.Among those urging Mr. Johnson to run are Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, who wrote on Twitter that he was supporting the former prime minister under the hashtag #BORISorBUST. Nadine Dorries, another strong supporter in Parliament, described him as a “known winner.”More centrist lawmakers might also be tempted to support Mr. Johnson because of his history of success in elections before his recent ethics scandals. But his critics say he would struggle to unite his colleagues, and one Conservative lawmaker, Roger Gale, has said he would resign from the party if Mr. Johnson returned.Ms. Mordaunt, who finished third in the summer leadership contest, has good communication skills and has raised her profile in recent weeks, including this week when she appeared in Parliament to defend the government.She is relatively untested at the highest reaches of government. But her supporters argue that she has more experience than former prime ministers like Tony Blair and David Cameron who never held ministerial positions before taking power, having been in opposition.And Ms. Mordaunt might be the best placed of the possible contenders to manage a fractured Conservative Party.“Penny is the best candidate to unite our party and lead our great nation,” said Bob Seely, one of her supporters and a member of Parliament.Britain’s leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, is another potential candidate for prime minister. Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNone of the likely front-runners have yet declared, but by Monday afternoon, contenders must have nominations from at least 100 of the 357 Conservative lawmakers, a number intended to speed up the contest by limiting potential candidates to a maximum of three.If only one politician passes that threshold, he or she will become prime minister on Monday. If there are two or three, Conservative lawmakers will vote on Monday and the top two will then go for a final decision on Oct. 28 in a vote by about 170,000 Conservative Party members — unless one withdraws voluntarily.Other possible candidates include the home secretary, Suella Braverman, who was fired by Ms. Truss on Wednesday, and Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary. However, on the evidence of their performance in the summer leadership contest, neither is seen as likely to reach the threshold of 100 nominations.On Friday, the defense secretary, Ben Wallace, ruled himself out of the contest, and said he was leaning toward support for Mr. Johnson. More