Rishi Sunak will be the next Prime Minister.

He becomes the third person to hold the office in just seven weeks after a tumultuous period in British politics.

The former chancellor was the only nomination for the Conservative Party leadership after Penny Mordaunt failed to get the 100 nominations from Tory MPs needed to go forward to a vote among party members.

Boris Johnson, the former PM, pulled out of the race last night, despite claiming he had enough MPs backing him for a return less than two months after he left office.

With just one candidate, the party members do not get a vote and Sunak succeeds Liz Truss as Tory leader and will become Prime Minister.

Mordaunt dropped out just minutes before Sir Graham Brady was due to announce the result of the nominations process.

Brady said: "We have received one valid nomination. Rishi Sunak is elected leader of the Conservative Party."

Sunak was the chancellor for most of Johnson’s time as Prime Minister and was in charge of the country’s finances during the Covid pandemic, spending almost £100bn on furlough and other job support schemes.

He also put in place the Eat Out to Help Out initiative, which was blamed in part for a second Covid wave when people began socialising in hospitality.

Almost £15bn has been reportedly lost in fraud and error from all the Covid support schemes.

It was Sunak’s resignation that sparked the flood of ministers quitting the Government that brought down Johnson as Prime Minister earlier this year.

He lost the resultant leadership contest to Truss, despite being the top choice of MPs.

Sunak is the richest MP in the House of Commons.

He is married to Akshata Murty whose father, Indian billionaire Narayana Murty, owns Infosys, a software company.

Between them, their wealth is estimated to be more than £700m

Sunak had a career in finance before becoming an MP in 2015.

The couple have a £7m home in London and a manor house in his constituency of Richmond in Yorkshire, where the swimming pool alone costs a reported £14,000 a year to heat.

When Truss became Prime Minister last month, she was chosen by around 80,000 Conservative Party members out of a total 141,000 who voted.

The last Prime Minister to be elected following a General Election was Johnson, in 2019, when the Tories won 365 seats and had a majority in parliament of 80.