Rishi Sunak makes history as the UK’s first Hindu prime minister

Rishi Sunak has just made British political history by becoming the UK's first ever Hindu prime minister.

Sunak was beaten by Liz Truss in a Tory leadership contest just a few weeks ago, gaining the support of the majority of Conservative MPs but losing the vote held by party membership.

However, with the swift and dramatic collapse of Truss's government after a catastrophic mini-budget, she ended up becoming the shortest serving UK prime minister in history, at least for now.

With no appetite for yet another lengthy leadership contest that lasts longer than the prime minister it produces, Truss announced that she'd have a replacement ready to go within the week.

The Conservative Party announced much tighter rules on who could stand for the leadership, requiring candidates to get the support of at least 100 Tory MPs before they could be considered a legitimate candidate.

With these tougher rules in place Southampton-born Sunak stormed to victory, quickly amassing the support he needed from his fellow MPs to send him into Downing Street as the clear favourite.

Russell Hart / Alamy Stock Photo

He saw off challenges from Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss's predecessor Boris Johnson, whose campaign allegedly amassed the backing of the 100 MPs needed to launch a new leadership bid, but you don't know them because they go to a different parliament.

With Johnson proving to be an incredibly divisive figure and Mordaunt unable to hoover up the former prime minister's support, it left Sunak as the clear favourite to take the top job in British politics.

He enters Downing Street as the UK's first Hindu and first non-white prime minister, a historic moment in British history.

While he once told UNILAD he didn't want to be prime minister, that's exactly what he's become following his selection as Tory leader.

During his time as chancellor, he said that having a non-white individual in one of the great offices of state 'says a lot about our country', calling the UK an 'unbelievably tolerant' place where his family has been 'warmly welcomed'.

He said it proves: "If you work hard, you contribute, you integrate, you can achieve your dreams and reach whatever it is you want to do."

Alexi / Alamy Stock Photo

Sunak first rose to public prominence when he became chancellor of the exchequer following the resignation of Sajid Javid after a row with the prime minister.

At the time, Sunak was chief secretary to the treasury (a role he took over from Liz Truss) and seen as a Boris Johnson loyalist, stepping into one of the great offices of state right around the time something called Coronavirus was starting to make bigger headlines.

Sunak launched his first budget a month later, though it was quickly dwarfed by the scale of the crisis the pandemic was posing, and the chancellor faced major criticism over many people not being able to access help.

He then launched a much larger package paying 80 percent of wages for people's jobs in what became known as the 'furlough scheme', though there were still groups of workers left out of support.

Some of Sunak's other schemes also came in for criticism for being easy targets for fraud, while his 'Eat Out To Help Out' scheme received a portion of the blame for a Covid resurgence in late 2020.

Later on in his time as chancellor, he was implicated in the 'partygate' scandal where senior politicians were found to have breached their own coronavirus lockdown rules.

REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

Sunak was hit with a fine for breaking the rules as his office admitted they'd had drinks while the UK was in lockdown.

While initially thought of as a Johnson loyalist, the chancellor and prime minister grew increasingly divided over their time in Downing Street and Sunak's resignation was one of the major signals for Tory MPs to desert Boris Johnson's government en masse.

Only time will tell whether he can succeed where Liz Truss and Boris Johnson failed at holding together a fractious Tory party - and whether he can avoid having to resign himself.

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