Lee Anderson has become the first Nottinghamshire MP to publicly back Penny Mordaunt as the new Prime Minister after Boris Johnson withdrew from the race. The MP for Ashfield originally supported Boris Johnson, who he had a phone call with on Saturday (October 22), after the former Prime Minister cut short a Caribbean holiday amid the resignation of Liz Truss.
Candidates to be the next Conservative Party leader need to have the backing of 100 MPs by 2pm today (October 24) and despite claiming that he had passed this threshold, Mr Johnson announced on Sunday that he was pulling out of the leadership contest. He said that Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt had not agreed to work with him and that "you can't govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament."
Lee Anderson said it was "very disappointing" that Boris Johnson had withdrawn from the contest, but later confirmed that he would now be backing Penny Mordaunt as the new Prime Minister. Posting on social media, Mr Anderson said: "There are only two candidates left.
