Liz Truss resigns: How will Britain’s new Prime Minister be chosen?

What happens when a Tory leader steps down?

According to the BBC, when a Conservative leader resigns, the new leader has to be elected via an election. The rules of the election are organised by the 1922 Committee.

The 1922 Committee or the Conservative Private Members’ Committee is the Tory parliamentary group in the House of Commons and consists of all ‘backbench MPs’ – legislators not holding a government office.

Graham Brady, the Chairman of the 1922 committee of the Conservative Party, met with the board and announced a new leader will be chosen by the evening of Friday, October 28. The process for party members to send in their nominations was declared open after Liz Truss resigned, and will close on Monday, October 24. To secure a candidacy, a member must show they have the support of at least 100 MPs.

The threshold for establishing support may have been kept high to speed up the process. If only one person achieves this, they will get elected directly. If more than one person gets the required support, Conservative MPs will vote and the person with the lowest number of MPs supporting them will be eliminated. Conservative MPs will then vote between two candidates for their preferred choice. Finally, other Conservative Party members will vote online, and the winner will become the party leader and the UK Prime Minister.

Could the country go to the polls?

Not unless the new Prime Minister calls for it. The next general election is scheduled for January 2025.

What happened after Boris Johnson resigned?

According to the BBC, the contest to replace Boris consisted of two stages.

“Firstly, Tory MPs chose two candidates to go forward to a vote of the wider membership of the party. Tory MPs whittled down the field with a series of ballots where the candidate with the fewest votes was eliminated after each round. Ms Truss – along with former chancellor Rishi Sunak – ended up with the most votes and therefore entered the final stage. In stage two, Conservative Party members chose the winner in a vote,” the BBC said.