By Alexander
Smith
LONDON — Former finance minister Rishi Sunak was sworn in as British prime minister on Tuesday, the latest leader of the ruling Conservative Party who hopes to break a cycle of political chaos and begin to tackle the country's grim economic mess.
Sunak, the first British Asian to take office and a former billionaire banker, met with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace as part of a handover ceremony known as "kissing hands."
After receiving the official resignation of Liz Truss, the new monarch formally appointed Sunak Prime Minister and invited him to form a government.
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Sunak is now the UK's third leader in seven weeks.
Truss became the 15th prime minister of Queen Elizabeth II's reign just 49 days ago, the shortest term in British political history.
Now each of her successors is taking her place, a mark of the tumult that has beset the world's sixth-largest economy.
King Charles III receives Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, Tuesday, October 25, 2022. Aaron Chown / AP
In a farewell speech outside 10 Downing St. early Tuesday, Truss did not apologize for his short and dire tenure, but rather defended the series of tax cuts - now abandoned - that sent markets into They fired and then supposed their disappearance at breakneck speed.
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Her short time as prime minister has left her "more convinced than ever that we have to be bold and face the challenges we face."
After his speech, Sunak will name his Cabinet, personnel who will give an idea of how he hopes to face the fall of the country's economy and his own political party.
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“The UK is a great country, but there is no doubt that we face a profound economic challenge,” he declared in a 90-second speech after winning the leadership race on Monday.
"Now we need stability, and unity, and my top priority will be to unite our party and our country," he added.
Truss' disastrous management has helped Sunak seize power shortly after losing a previous leadership contest to her.
But even in a few short weeks Truss has made her successor's job undoubtedly more difficult.
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He tried to introduce a set of hard-line capitalist policies that included tax cuts for the high income earners, without explaining how he would pay for it all.
That sent markets into a tailspin, with the pound plummeting and borrowing costs rising, something Sunak correctly predicted would happen during his run for the lead.
It soon became clear that Truss no longer had the backing of her bitterly divided party, let alone her country: she leaves office with an approval rating of just 6%, according to one poll.
He would have faced a colossal task without this upheaval: the UK is already mired in a daunting cost of living crisis which means millions of people may find it difficult to eat and heat their homes this winter.
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It must now try to resolve this, as well as ameliorate the damage caused by the quickly
reversed
Trussanomics
experiment
. Truss, and the Free Enterprise Group, a group of
Thatcherite
-leaning Conservative Party MPs
founded by Truss in mid-2011].
Rishi Sunak (centre) meeting with members of the 1922 Committee in the Houses of Parliament, London, after it was announced that he would become the new leader of the Conservative Party following the departure of his rival Penny Mordaunt.
Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images
"Rishi Sunak faces an absolutely gigantic challenge," Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told our sister network, NBC News.
“He faces very, very big problems that are not only economic, but also, of course, electoral,” he pointed out.
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At 42, Sunak will be the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years.
The son of Hindus of African descent, he is also the country's first ethnic minority leader in 140 years, after Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th century, who was of Jewish descent but practicing Christian.
Although Sunak is a former banker, it is through his wife's father, an Indian software tycoon, that the couple has an estimated fortune of 730 million pounds ($825 million), making them richer than the king. and Camila, the queen consort.
The appointment of a new prime minister is usually a big event in the UK.
It has only happened four times between Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and David Cameron in 2010. But Britons can be forgiven for being much more tired today, as Sunak is the fifth Conservative prime minister in just over six years.
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The latest round of turmoil began in July, when Boris Johnson was forced to resign after a series of scandals led to mass resignations from his government.
Sunak, his economy minister at the time, was the first of them.
He was also the favorite to replace Johnson, but was shockingly beaten by Truss, whose tax-cutting policy was more popular with the 200,000 Conservative Party members.
Now, after Truss's hasty resignation and Johnson's failed attempt to return to the presidency, Sunak is in the top spot.
In the UK, the party with the most legislators in the House of Commons can appoint a new leader without the need for national elections.
This dynamic has drawn criticism from the Labor Party, from the centre-left opposition, but with Labor rising in the polls and the Conservatives demoralized, Sunak is likely to focus on stabilizing markets and his colleagues.