During this leadership campaign, I campaigned as a Conservative and will govern as a Conservative. And my friends, we need to show that we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will address the energy crisis by addressing people’s energy bills, but also by addressing the long-term issues we have in energy supply. And I will deliver to the National Health System. But we will all deliver for our country. And I will make sure we use all the fantastic talent in the Conservative Party, our brilliant MPs and colleagues, our fantastic councillors, our MSs, our MSPs, all our councilors and campaigners and members across our country. Because my friends I know we will deliver, deliver and deliver. And we will deliver a great victory for the Conservative party in 2024. Thank you. The mention of an election in 2024 should dispel speculation that Truss called an earlier election (not that it was very plausible in the first place). And this is. Truss’s speech is over. Updated at 13.06 BST Important events BETA filters Key facts (8) Liz Truss (20) Rishi Sunak (9) Boris Johnson (7) Andrew Stephenson (4) Graham Brady (3)
Truss was elected with 57.4% of the vote – the lowest margin of any previous Tory leader elected by members
Liz Truss received 57.4% of the vote and Rishi Sunak received 42.6%. This means that of the four Conservative party leaders elected after a vote of all members, she is the only one to have secured less than 60% of the vote. At 82.6%, the turnout was lower than at the ballot box when Boris Johnson was elected in 2019. But it was higher than in 2001 and 2005 (when the party was in opposition and the result counted less.) In 2001 Iain Duncan Smith beat Ken Clarke in the final vote with 60.7% of the vote to Clarke’s 39.3. Participation was 78.3%. In 2005 David Cameron beat David Davis in the final vote with 67.6% of the vote to Davis’ 32.3. Participation was 78.4%. And in 2019 Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt in the final vote with 66.4% of the vote to Hunt’s 33.6. Participation was 87.4%
Truss vows to ‘deliver for our country’ as she says she expects next general election in 2024
Trus continues: During this leadership campaign, I campaigned as a Conservative and will govern as a Conservative. And my friends, we need to show that we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will address the energy crisis by addressing people’s energy bills, but also by addressing the long-term issues we have in energy supply. And I will deliver to the National Health System. But we will all deliver for our country. And I will make sure we use all the fantastic talent in the Conservative Party, our brilliant MPs and colleagues, our fantastic councillors, our MSs, our MSPs, all our councilors and campaigners and members across our country. Because my friends I know we will deliver, deliver and deliver. And we will deliver a great victory for the Conservative party in 2024. Thank you. The mention of an election in 2024 should dispel speculation that Truss called an earlier election (not that it was very plausible in the first place). And this is. Truss’s speech is over. Updated at 13.06 BST Trus continues: Friends and colleagues, thank you for putting your faith in me to lead our great Conservative party, the biggest political party on the planet. I know our beliefs resonate with the British people. Our beliefs in freedom, the ability to control your life, low taxes, personal responsibility. I know that is why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and as your party leader I intend to deliver on what we promised those voters across our great country. Updated at 13.07 BST
Liz Truss says she is honored to be elected and pays tribute to Boris Johnson
Liz Truss says she is honored to be elected party leader. He thanked party staff “for organizing one of the biggest job interviews in history”. She thanks her family, friends and supporters, She pays tribute to her rivals, particularly Rishi Sunak. He says they have shown “the breadth and depth of talent in the Conservative party”. And he thanks the outgoing leader, “my friend Boris Johnson”. She continues: Boris, you are done with Brexit. You crushed Jeremy Corbyn, you made the vaccine. And you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You were admired from Kyiv to Carlisle. Truss stops, but it takes a while for the people in the audience to applaud. Updated at 12.47 BST
Truss elected Tory leader and next prime minister
Sir Graham Brady is now reading the results. The ballot box was safe, as well as free and fair, he says. He thanks the 1922 executive committee and staff for their work, and the party council for organizing the outings. And he thanks those who took part in the count, the party members who took it so seriously, all the candidates who ran, and especially Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. He reads the result. Liz Truss: 81,326 Rishi Sunak: 60,399 Electoral College: 172,437 Participation: 82.6% Rejected ballots: 654 Stephenson welcomes the two candidates to the room. They take their seats. Liz Truss smiles more than Rishi Sunak. Stephenson thanks the MPs and 1922 executive for their support. And he offers “a huge thank you” to Boris Johnson. His name elicits continuous applause. Stephenson says Johnson led the country through Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It was never going to be easy. But Johnson rose to the challenge, he says. He says it is now necessary for the party to unite behind the new leader. Stevenson says 12 outposts have been made. They’ve been watched by 20,000 members, he says (after initially saying 2,000 by mistake), and 2.5 million people have watched them online. Andrew Stevenson, chairman of the Conservative party, appears on the platform. He says he is proud of the way the competition was run. He has shown the Conservative party “to have a good voice and a good power”. Liz Truss arrives at the QEII Center to hear the result of the leadership contest. Photo: John Sibley/Reuters This is from the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope. Interesting. Tory MPs backing Rishi Sunak have bet late on him to win. One put £10 on it on 1/9 last week. And a second put £10 on Sunak at 79/1 this morning. Sound investment or vain optimism? We can’t wait long now… #ToryLeadershipContest — Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) September 5, 2022 Sunak’s supporters tell me 25,000 Tory members voted last week. The opinion is that the polls were mainly for Sunak, which will have reduced Truss’ expected victory. — Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) September 5, 2022 Those MPs who are banking on Rishi Sunak to win are in the minority. This morning, Chris Curtis, head of political polling at Opinium, told the Today program that while party members are difficult (because there are relatively few of them and it’s hard to weight a sample by age etc.), it was “pretty sure” that Liz Truss would win because the polls showed her ahead by such a wide margin. In the past polls were often wrong. But if they’re wrong, there’s usually at least one poll that challenges the consensus view, and reporters can find people involved in the campaign who say the poll is misleading. None of these conditions apply to this competition. Even Sunak himself seemed to concede defeat in his interview with the BBC’s Laura Kunsberg yesterday.
The Conservative party is to announce the results of the leadership election
We are now just 15 minutes away from announcing the winner of the Conservative leadership contest. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, were the two candidates to get on the party’s membership ballot. They were candidates who came out on top after five consecutive rounds of voting by MPs who whittled down the original field of eight candidates to a shortlist of two. The Conservative party only started allowing members to elect the leader after 1997, and this is the fourth time an all-member vote has been held. But it is only the second time the party has used this process to choose a new leader while in power. There are only around 160,000 members of the Conservative Party (CCHQ has not given an up-to-date figure recently) and many people have expressed concern that the decision on who will be the next Prime Minister is being made by such a small (and unrepresentative) sample of the population. When Tory MPs voted for Boris Johnson to become Prime Minister in 2019, 92,153 party members voted him into office. Labor began giving its members a vote in leadership elections after its defeat in 1979. But Labor members never had the chance to vote in a leadership contest while the party was in government. When Tony Blair resigned, Gordon Brown was elected to replace him unopposed. At 12.30 p.m. Andrew Stephenson, party chairman, will make a short speech. The result will then be announced by Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Commission. Updated at 12.36 BST
