Rishi Sunak's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 25 October 2022 when he accepted an invitation from King Charles III to form a government, succeeding Liz Truss. He is the first British Indian to hold the office of prime minister. As prime minister, Sunak is also serving as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union.
Sunak was defeated by Truss in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election and spent the duration of Truss's premiership as a backbencher. Following Truss's resignation amid a government crisis, Sunak was elected unopposed to succeed her after being the sole nominee in the October 2022 party leadership election. He was elected Leader of the Conservative Party on 24 October and was appointed prime minister the following day.
As prime minister, Sunak has authorised foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion of the country. He and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt have continued the levelling up policy introduced during the premiership of Boris Johnson. In January 2023, Sunak outlined five key priorities, one of which is the Illegal Migration Bill that was later introduced to the House of Commons by Home Secretary Suella Braverman in March 2023. In February 2023, Sunak negotiated a proposed agreement with the European Union (EU) on Northern Ireland's trading arrangements which was published as the "Windsor Framework", which is designed to address the issue of the movement of goods between the European single market and the UK in the current Northern Ireland Protocol; the agreement has failed to receive the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Sunak attended and spoke at the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in May 2023. In his speech at the October 2023 Conservative Party Conference, Sunak announced the cancellation of the western branch and the remainder of the eastern branch of the planned High Speed 2 (HS2) railway line.
A number of scandals involving Conservative MPs have occurred during Sunak's premiership. Gavin Williamson and Dominic Raab resigned from the Cabinet in November 2022 and April 2023 respectively after the former was accused of bullying MPs and the latter was found to have bullied civil servants. Chairman of the Conservative Party Nadhim Zahawi was dismissed by Sunak in January 2023 after he was found to have breached the Ministerial Code by failing to disclose he was being investigated by HM Revenue and Customs while he served as chancellor under Johnson. Under Sunak, the Conservative Party lost over 1,000 councillors during the 2023 local elections, while the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats made significant gains, which were the poorest local election results for the party since the 2019 local elections under Prime Minister Theresa May.
Conservative leadership bids
July–September 2022
Sunak stood in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election to replace Boris Johnson, after his resignation amid a government crisis. Sunak launched his campaign in a video posted to social media, writing that he would "restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country". He said that his values were "patriotism, fairness, hard work", and pledged to "crack down on gender neutral language". During the campaign, Sunak pledged to included tax cuts only when inflation was under control, scrapping of the 5% VAT rate on household energy for one year, introducing a temporary £10 fine for patients who fail to attend GP appointments, capping of refugee numbers, and a tightening of the definition of asylum. Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss emerged as the final two candidates in the contest on 20 July to be put forward to the membership for the final leadership vote; he had received the most votes in each of the series of MP votes with Sunak receiving 137 to Truss's 113 in the final round. In the membership vote, Truss received 57.4% of the vote, making her the new leader over Sunak. He spent the duration of Truss's premiership on the backbenches.
October 2022
Following the resignation of Truss after another government crisis, Sunak stood in the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election and formally launched his bid to become Leader of the Conservative Party on 23 October 2022. Sunak was backed by several cabinet members and prominent party members, such as Lord Frost, Kemi Badenoch, Nadhim Zahawi, Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly, Ben Wallace, Priti Patel, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Gove, and Dominic Raab.