Rishi Sunak could be our third prime minister in three months by 2.30pm

The former chancellor is now the heavy favourite for Number 10 and may be just hours away from defeating Penny Mordaunt (Picture: Getty/Reuters)

Britain may know the identity of its new prime minister by 2.30pm this afternoon.

Heavy favourite Rishi Sunak will be given a ‘coronation’ if his rival Penny Mordaunt fails to win the backing of 100 Tory MPs.

The Leader of the House of Commons is currently on around 30 – and will need to take at least 70 of the roughly 160 undecideds to force the contest into a ballot among Conservative members.

It comes after Boris Johnson dramatically withdrew from the race to replace Liz Truss last night, despite claiming he had enough backers to make the threshold.

Despite the uphill task facing Mordaunt, if she can squeeze through this afternoon she could yet triumph – since she is popular among Tory members, who rejected Sunak just weeks ago.

Yet the former chancellor is now the undoubted frontrunner – partly since Mordaunt will come under heavy pressure to drop out if Sunak defeats her comfortably in the vote among MPs, as expected.

Sunak backers are likely to suggest that she should step aside for the sake of party unity and because she may struggle to govern even if she were to take the keys to Number 10.

King Charles is expected to be ready to welcome a new Prime Minister in later today.

Mordaunt arriving for a BBC interview yesterday (Picture: Reuters)

Sunak has some 167 backers so far, according to the Guido Fawkes website.

But Mordaunt’s team hope that many former Johnson backers weigh in behind her and that in the private ballot some Tories vote differently to how they publicly declared.

A campaign source argued Mordaunt is the candidate who Labour fear the most.

They said: ‘Penny is the unifying candidate who is most likely to keep the wings of the Conservative Party together and polling shows that she is the most likely candidate to hold onto the seats the Conservative Party gained in 2019.’

However one senior minister who was backing Johnson – the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Nadhim Zahawi – said he would now be supporting Sunak, less than half an hour after a Telegraph article was publishing confirming his support for the former PM.

Sunak leaves his campaign office in London yesterday (Picture: AP)

With nominations due to close at 2pm, Mordaunt has limited time to get the necessary numbers and avoid Sunak being declared leader without a contest. The result will be announced by 2.30pm at the latest.

If she does win enough backing, MPs will then decide which of the two candidates they prefer in an ‘indicative’ vote – with the results of that announced at 6pm.

That aims to help inform members ahead of a final online poll of party members to decide the outcome with the result due on Friday – unless one of the candidates pulls out.

Some in the party are uneasy about allowing the contest to go to the members, given the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss, who Try members voted for despite her having only limited backing of MPs.

However many activists – particularly those who loathe Sunak for his role in bringing down Johnson – will be furious if they are denied a say.

Meanwhile, Labour is calling for a general election, with Britain set to have its third prime minister in as many months – two of them without a mandate from the general public, amid economic and political chaos.

Sunak-supporting Tory MP Tobias Ellwood dismissed the calls.

‘The country does not want further economic instability,’ the chair of the Commons defence select committee told the BBC.

‘And what you’d get if there was a general election is it would not be clear as to which direction the country would go, there’d be greater upheaval, the markets would then be spooked again.

‘There would probably be a run on the pound, that would see interest rates climb (and) mortgages go up as well. This isn’t the leadership the country wants.’

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But he faces a nail-biting vote among Tory members if rival Penny Mordaunt secures the backing of 100 MPs.