With the skill and diligence of a circular firing squad, Britain’s Conservative members of Parliament are thinning the ranks of contenders to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Last week they reduced the field from eight to five in two rounds of voting. By the end of this week, two will still be standing. The finalists will then face the party membership, who will elect a new leader in early September. One finalist will almost certainly be Rishi Sunak, Mr. Johnson’s ex-finance minister. The other will likely be Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt or perhaps Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former Equality Minister Kemi Badenoch, who is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants and would be Britain’s first black prime minister.
The Labour Party should fear only one Conservative at election time: Boris Johnson. A week and a half ago his own ministers stabbed him in the front. Even in good times, it would have been risky to fire the prime minister who delivered Brexit and the biggest majority since 1987. These aren’t good times. Inflation threatens to hit double figures, the economy is sliding into recession, energy prices are rocketing, the opposition is ahead in the polls and Britain is committed to an open-ended proxy war in Ukraine.
