Rishi Sunak warns Tories party faces ‘existential threat’ and rules out early general election after winning race to be PM – live | Conservative leadership

Rishi Sunak is about to give a speech on camera at Tory HQ. These will be his first public comments, not just since becoming prime minister designate (he won’t take over until tomorrow at the earlier) but since Liz Truss resigned. He got elected Tory leader this time without making any public speeches, or giving any interviews, at all.

In normal circumstances that would be a democratic outrage, but the process was truncated, and Sunak and his policy agenda, were subject to extensive coverage during the last Tory leadership contest in the summer.

But of course quite a lot has changed since then. It would have been good to have heard him discuss the mini-budget, and the economic crisis it provoked.

All we got was this message.

At the afternoon lobby briefing, Downing Street said the handover of power from Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak would not happen today. It is expected to happen tomorrow, although the PM’s spokesperson would not even confirm that.

Simon Hoare, a long-time Rishi Sunak supporter, has given more details of Sunak’s speech to Tory MPs where he told them the party faced “an existential threat”. (See 3.37pm.)

“[Sunak] said we could not pretend the last few weeks and months had been easy or edifying or helpful,” said Hoarer. He went on:

We are going back to serious, pragmatic traditions of Conservative government. The message we heard was about going forward – as a party and a government this is about the future and shaping the future. We cannot rewrite history. We will play the hand we have got, but it is not an inevitable threat we face.

Sunak told MPs his ambition was to have a “highly productive UK economy”, stressing a commitment to levelling up and the pledges of the 2019 manifesto. He said the party backed “low taxation” but said it had to be affordable and deliverable.

He said a stable and productive economy would be the engine that drove a well-funded health and education service, as well as delivering on net zero carbon emissions and said it would be an “environmentally focused government”.

Sunak said there would be “no early election” though he said opposition parties would inevitably clamour for one. He said he would ask the British people for space and time to resolve the problems the country is facing.

There was no commitment to spending cuts, but Sunak said it would be a “tough period” for the government. Stressing a need for stability, MPs said they inferred that Sunak would ask Jeremy Hunt to stay on as chancellor. “Time is not on our side, we have no time to lose,” Hoare said.

Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent backer of both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, said it was right that a decision had been made quickly. He said:

There is no more messing around, it is time to end the psychodrama and get on with governing. He [Sunak] said it was time to end personality politics. He knows now we have to deliver what we promise. His first priority is to stabilise the economy and get that moving, then all the other things we promise to do, make the most of Brexit, levelling up in left-behind areas.

Sunak warned MPs in that meeting a little earlier that the Conservative party was facing an “existential threat,” according to the Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot.

Rishi Sunak has told Conservative MPs that there will not be an early general election.

The new Tory leader addressed MPs in the Commons after the 1922 Committee announced he was the only candidate in a condensed leadership contest.

We’re now waiting for Sunak to appear in public as Tory activists and MPs are gathering outside of Conservative Party Central Office.