Rishi Sunak to be named UK’s first non-white prime minister

Former UK Treasury chief Rishi Sunak won the race to become the new prime minister on Monday, the third since the summer and the nation’s first non-white leader.

Sunak won the latest leadership battle after his only remaining rival, Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt, conceded and withdrew.

“Rishi has my full support,” Mordaunt said in a concession statement.

Sunak will now be invited by King Charles III to form a government.

The results of the race will make the multi-millionaire former hedge fund boss Britain’s first non-white leader and the first Hindu to take the top job. 

At 42, he’s also the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years, a political prodigy dubbed “Dishy Rishi” thanks to his youthful looks, sharp suits, and smooth, confident manner.

Sunak has already promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability” — a contrast to the chaos of his two recent predecessors, both of whom he had sounded alarm over.

The Oxford university grad had quit as Treasury chief in July in protest at the doomed leadership of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a major turning point leading to Johnson’s eventual resignation 48 hours later.

When he came second to Liz Truss in the battle to take control after Johnson, Sunak had correctly warned that her plans to slash taxes on wealthy Britons would result in the fiscal chaos which led to her humiliating exit last week as the shortest-serving UK leader.

That prescient warning and earlier support quickly helped make him an early favorite for the current job.

His win had seemed cemented on Sunday when former Johnson took his name out of the running.

Despite being forced to resign in July amid a series of scandals, Johnson received strong backing from senior Conservative Party leaders, leaving him appearing set for a potential return to power.

However, he is said to have withdrawn after a face-to-face meeting with Sunak, who persuaded him to pull out for the sake of the party, according to numerous UK reports.

Johnson returned early from a Caribbean getaway for the contest, but said he was ending his bid because “you can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament.”

Johnson did, however, hint at a return as he insisted he was “well placed to deliver a Conservative victory” in the next national election, due by 2024.

“I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time,” he said Sunday.

The majority of Johnson’s backers switched to Sunak, leaving third-place hopeful Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, far short of the 100 nominations by the ruling party’s lawmakers she needed.

The son of middle-class parents of Indian descent who were both born in East Africa, Sunak takes the helm with a daunting set of challenges, including a fractured party and an economic crisis sparked largely by the policies of his predecessor that he tried warning against.

He had insisted he wanted to take control to repair the “breakdown of trust” in politics.

With Post wires