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BREAKING: Rishi Sunak Becomes UK’s New Prime Minister

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BREAKING: Rishi Sunak Becomes UK’s New Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak will become the United Kingdom’s new prime minister after winning the ruling Conservative Party’s leadership contest triggered by the dramatic resignation of Liz Truss last week.

Sunak’s win on Monday came days after Truss’s resignation following her disastrous tax cuts plans and policy U-turns plunged the markets into chaos. The unprecedented economic crisis drew a rare intervention from the Bank of England.

Sunak was to make his first remarks at 2:30pm (13:30 GMT), according to Party official Graham Brady, whose 1922 committee of Tory MPs organised a rapid leadership election following last week’s resignation of Truss.

He has been left with the task of steering a deeply divided country through an economic downturn set to leave millions of people poorer.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from London, said Sunak is “pretty well placed” despite the challenges ahead.

 READ ALSO: Truss Resigns As Briefest Serving PM In UK History

“In some ways … some of his paid work has already been done in terms of putting out the fires that Liz Truss created – because, it did cause a storm in the markets,” Simmons said.

Sunak’s only challenger, Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons and former defence minister, was reportedly backed by 30 MPs compared with nearly 150 supporting Sunak.

“This decision is an historic one and shows, once again, the diversity and talent of our party,” Mordaunt said in a statement as she withdrew from the race just minutes before the winner was due to be announced. “Rishi has my full support.”

“These are unprecedented times. Despite the compressed timetable for the leadership contest it is clear that colleagues feel we need certainty today,” she said. “They have taken this decision in good faith for the good of the country.”

Sunak and Mordaunt had lost to Truss in an earlier race to appoint a new leader after then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to announce his resignation in July following a wave of scandals linked to parties entertained during the coronavirus lockdown.

Sunak, a former finance minister, will be Britain’s first leader of color and the first Hindu to take the top job. At 42, he’ll also be the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years.

The multi-millionaire former hedge fund boss will be expected to launch deep spending cuts to try to rebuild Britain’s fiscal reputation, just as the country slides into a recession, dragged down by the surging cost of energy and food.

READ ALSO: How Use Of Private Email Cost UK Home Secretary Braverman Her Job

He will also inherit a political party that has fractured along ideological lines, a challenge that damaged the fortunes of several former Conservative leaders.

While there were rumours over a Johnson’s comeback over the weekend, he pulled out of the contest on Sunday.

He said late on Sunday that he had secured the backing of 102 legislators and could have been “back in Downing Street”, but that he had failed to persuade either Sunak or the other contender, Mordaunt, to come together “in the national interest”.

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

The Tories retain a majority in parliament, meaning that as their leader, Sunak will be named prime minister by King Charles III.

Economists have questioned whether Sunak can tackle the country’s finances while holding the party’s multiple warring factions together.

Finance minister Jeremy Hunt – the fourth person in that role in four months – is due to present a budget on October 31 to plug a black hole in the public finances that is expected to have ballooned to up to 40bn pounds.

Conservative political commentator, Alex Deane, said that the last three conservative prime ministers have been brought down by members of their own party.

“So it’s very nice to hear people say good things about our new leader,” Deane told Al Jazeera.

“[Sunak] didn’t have a direct electoral mandate … one of the things he is going to have to do … is preside over a period of relative calm, reassuring the markets, and not doing anything too bold or too rapid,” Deane said.

“One of the things he is likely to do, is to keep Jeremy Hunt as chancellor – he really reassured the markets when he arrived,” he added. “What he can’t do is to compel Tory MPs to demonstrate loyalty to him.”

.Al Jazeera

 

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French Schools Send Home Schoolgirls For Wearing Muslim Dress Abayas

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French President Emmanuel Macron

French schools sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – an over-garment from the shoulders to the feet worn by Muslim women – on the first day of the school year, a government minister said on Tuesday.

Defying a ban on the Muslim dress, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing an abaya, education secretary Gabriel Attal told the BFM broadcaster.

The Daily Mail quoted Attal as saying that most agreed to change out of the dress, but 67 refused and were sent home.

The government announced last month it was banning the abaya in schools, saying it broke the rules on secularism in education that have already seen Muslim headscarves banned on the grounds they constitute a display of religious affiliation.

The move gladdened the political Right but the hard-Left argued it represented an affront to civil liberties.

French schools sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – an over-garment from the shoulders to the feet worn by Muslim women – on the first day of the school year, a government minister said on Tuesday.

Announcing the ban last month, Attal said at the time: ‘When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them. I have decided that the abaya can no longer be worn in schools.’

Attal said the girls refused entry were given a letter addressed to their families saying that ‘secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty’.

If they showed up at school again wearing the dress there would be a ‘new dialogue’, the minister said.

On Monday evening, president Emmanuel Macron defended the controversial measure, saying there was a ‘minority’ in France who ‘hijack a religion and challenge the republic and secularism’, leading to the ‘worst consequences’ such as the murder three years ago of teacher Samuel Paty for showing Mohammed caricatures during a civics education class.

‘We cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened,’ he said in an interview with Youtube channel HugoDecrypte.

An association representing Muslims has filed a motion with the State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against state authorities, for an injunction against the ban on the abaya and the qamis, its equivalent dress for men.

The Action for the Rights of Muslims (ADM) motion is to be examined later on Tuesday.

Abdallah Zekri, vice-president of the French Council for Muslim Worship, said last month the abaya ‘has never been a religious symbol’ and should not be banned.

He said the ban was yet another example of politicians using dress favoured by women and girls to attack some five million Muslims living in France.

‘I think the minister could have asked the opinion of religious leaders,’ said Zerkri.

‘For me, the abaya is not a religious dress, it is a form of fashion.

‘If you go to some stores, you find abayas. It’s a long and loose dress at the same time. It has nothing to do with religion.’

A law introduced in March 2004 banned ‘the wearing of signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation’ in schools.

This includes large Christian crosses, Jewish kippas and Islamic headscarves.

Unlike headscarves, abayas occupied a grey area and had faced no outright ban until now.

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Gabon’s BREAKING:Military Leader Sworn In As President

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Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema

Gabon ‘s new military leader was sworn in as the head of state Monday less than a week after ousting the president whose family had ruled the Central African nation for more than five decades.

Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, took the oath in the presidential palace in front of a packed, boisterous room of government officials, military and local leaders in Gabon’s capital, Libreville. Oligui is a cousin of the ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba, served as a bodyguard to his late father and is head of the republican guard, an elite military unit.

Speaking to applause and standing ovations Monday, Oligui said the military had seized power without bloodshed and promised to return power to the people by organizing free, transparent and credible elections.

“With the new government, made up of experienced people, we’re going to give everyone a chance to hope,” he said.

.AP

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BREAKING: Gabonese Military Officers Sack President

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President Ali Bongo

Senior Gabonese military officers appeared on national television to announce they have taken power.

The group of 12 officers made the announcement shortly after Gabon’s election body reported early on Wednesday morning that President Ali Bongo had won a third term in office.

After observing “irresponsible, unpredictable governance resulting in a continuing deterioration in social cohesion that risks leading the country into chaos… we have decided to defend peace by putting an end to the current regime”, one of the soldiers said, speaking on the Gabon 24 TV channel.

There was no immediate comment from the Gabon government, the Reuters news agency reported.

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