Tory leadership election finally over and the UK is days away from a new Prime Minister

Campaigning in the Tory leadership election is finally over and the UK is a few days away from finding out who its new prime minister will be.

Voting officially closed at 5pm and the last ballots will be counted over the weekend.

Liz Tuss and Rishi Sunak will learn their fate on Monday but the former is widely expected to triumph.

The pair have set out their stall to Conservative party members throughout the summer and the foreign secretary appears to have an unassailable lead.

Despite being the popular choice among Tory MPs, polls have consistently shown rank and file members want Ms Truss to succeed Boris Johnson.

The result will be announced on Monday before Ms Truss or Mr Sunak travel to Balmoral to be formally appointed prime minister by the Queen.

It was confirmed this week that the 96-year-old monarch will not travel to London to meet the new PM, the 15th of her reign.

The meeting traditionally takes place at Buckingham Palace but the Queen, who has suffered recurring health problems over the last year, will remain in Scotland.

If she wins as expected, Ms Truss will likely spend much of Monday finalising details of who will be in her government.

Mr Johnson is expected to give a resignation address on Tuesday before the pair travel to Aberdeenshire where the change in leadership will be made official by the Queen.

The new PM will likely address the nation later in the day before cabinet appointments are confirmed ahead of its first meeting on Wednesday.

Not only is eligibility to pick the new PM highly exclusive, it’s unclear how many people are actually eligible to cast a vote.

Boris Johnson is expected to give a resignation statement on Tuesday morning before travelling to Scotland to meet with the Queen

The Conservative Party has not publicly disclosed how many members it has and some would have missed the June 3 cut off deadline imposed to stop people joining just to get a ballot.

Nearly 140,000 votes were cast in the Tory leadership election in summer 2019, when Boris Johnson won 92,153 votes and Jeremy Hunt won 46,656, with 509 spoiled ballots.

The turnout was given as 87%, suggesting around 160,000 people received ballots.

Only three years have passed since then, so it is unlikely the number of members eligible to vote has changed significantly.

Ballots were sent to Tory party members via post between August 1 and August 5.

Any ballots received after 5pm on September 2 will not be counted, the Conservative Party website states. Online voting is possible until close of ballot.

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