Liz Truss is the early favourite to become the next Tory leader as calls grow for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to resign following the Partygate probe.
That’s according to the latest odds from Betfair, who have the Foreign Secretary at odds of 6/1 to take over.
The bookmaker has Tom Tugendhat at 8/1, Jeremy Hunt at 9/1, Ben Wallace at 9/1 and Rishi Sunak down at 10/1.
Penny Mordaunt is currently priced at 11/1, with Sajid Javid (15/1) and Nadhim Zahawi (25/1) also among the frontrunners.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is the current favourite to become the next Tory leader
HENRY NICHOLLS
This comes after a statement from No.10 on Tuesday confirmed that both Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak would be receiving fines for breaches of Covid-19 laws in relation to the lockdown parties held at Downing Street.
The statement read: “The Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have today received notification that the Metropolitan police intend to issue them with fixed penalty notices.
"We have no further details, but we will update you again when we do.”
Leading figures from British politics, including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon have called for the Prime Minister to resign.
While members of the Tory party have continued to hold firm that Mr Johnson should not be ousted for the incident.
Boris Johnson is to be fined amid the ongoing Partygate investigation
POOL
Tory MP Sir Roger Gale said: “It’s serious of course. My position remains that the fact that the Prime Minister has effectively misled the House of Commons is a very serious issue indeed, but we are in the middle of an international crisis and I am not prepared to give Vladimir Putin the comfort of thinking that we are about to unseat the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and destabilise the coalition against Putin.
“So any reaction to this is going to have to wait until we have dealt with the main crisis which is Ukraine and the Donbas.”
He continued: “The Prime Minister has said categorically no rules were broken and nothing untoward took place. That is patently wrong and he now has to acknowledge that it’s wrong. And he will have to decide I think where that leaves him in his relationship with Parliament.
“My main concern is that we don’t rock the boat and give Putin the comfort of thinking that the alliance, the NATO alliance particularly, but the coalition that’s been put together to sanction Putin and all his works, is unstable. That’s absolutely of paramount importance.”
Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross added: "The public are rightly furious at what happened in Downing Street during the pandemic. I understand why they are angry and share their fury. The behaviour was unacceptable. The Prime Minister now needs to respond to these fines being issued.
"However, as I've made very clear, in the middle of war in Europe, when Vladimir Putin is committing war crimes and the UK is Ukraine's biggest ally, as President Zelensky said at the weekend, it wouldn't be right to remove the Prime Minister at this time.
“It would destabilise the UK Government when we need to be united in the face of Russian aggression and the murdering of innocent Ukrainians."
