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Rishi Sunak looked set to become Britain's next prime minister after his rival Boris Johnson quit the race, admitting that he could no longer unite their party following one of the most turbulent periods in British political history.

Sunak, the 42-year-old former finance minister, could be named leader as soon as Monday to replace Liz Truss, becoming Britain's third prime minister in less than two months.

The multi-millionaire former hedge fund boss will face one of the most daunting set of challenges, tasked with rebuilding Britain's fiscal reputation through deep spending cuts as it slides into a recession, dragged down by surging energy, food and mortgage rates.

He will also preside over a party that has bounced from one crisis to the next in recent months, badly split along ideological lines, and a country that is growing increasingly angry at the conduct of its politicians.

"The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis," Sunak said in a statement declaring his candidacy on Sunday.

First he must defeat the last candidate in the contest, Penny Mordaunt, who is fighting to secure the support of 100 lawmakers to get on to Monday's ballot. Mordaunt, who is leader of parliament's House of Commons, has so far received the backing of around 25 politicians. More than 150 have backed Sunak.

Should she fail to hit the threshold, Sunak would become prime minister. If she makes it on to the ballot, the party's members will select the winner on Friday.

"He's not taking anything for granted at all," interior minister Grant Shapps, a supporter of Sunak, told BBC television. "He's speaking to colleagues throughout this morning. And of course, we'll be hoping to attract sufficient numbers to ensure that this can be put to bed."

Citi economist Benjamin Nabarro said he was sceptical that the government had the legitimacy to manage the current economic challenges. Its first task will be to present a budget, expected on Oct. 31, to plug a black hole in the public finances.

"Political machinations over the weekend point to a party beset with divisions. With party unity and legitimacy conspicuously threadbare, we expect a structural credibility gap to remain," Nabarro said.

PARTY UNITY

Investors have at least been given some reassurance that Johnson will not be fighting for the leadership again. The former prime minister - forced out of office by a ministerial rebellion earlier this year following a series of scandals - had raced home from a holiday in the Caribbean to see if he could enter the ballot.

He said on Sunday night that while he had secured sufficient support, he realised that he could not govern effectively "unless you have a united party in parliament".

Johnson has loomed large over British politics for years. He led his party to a landslide election victory in 2019 but was forced out of Downing Street less than three years later following a string of scandals.

"Boris has bottled it," the Metro newspaper said on its front page as many lawmakers questioned whether he had actually secured the backing of the necessary 100 lawmakers. By Sunday just more than 50 said publicly they would vote for Johnson.

Many of Johnson's supporters had previously accused Sunak of betrayal after he quit as finance minister in the summer, triggering the rebellion that forced Johnson out

Sunak first came to national attention when, aged 39, he became finance minister under Johnson just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Britain, developing a furlough scheme to support millions of people through multiple lockdowns.

If chosen, the former Goldman Sachs analyst would be the United Kingdom's first prime minister of Indian origin.

His family migrated to Britain in the 1960s, a period when many people from Britain's former colonies arrived to help rebuild the country after the Second World War.

After graduating from Oxford University, he later went to Stanford University where he met his wife Akshata Murthy, whose father is Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy, founder of outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd. He also worked at Goldman Sachs as an analyst. (Reuters)

Penny Mordaunt, one of two candidates to be Britain's next prime minister, is still in the leadership race and is gaining endorsements, a campaign spokesperson said on Monday.

“Penny is speaking to colleagues from across the party. She’s getting the numbers and she’s in it to win it," the spokesperson said in a statement. (Reuters)

The first Syrian refugees in Lebanon to return home under a new repatriation scheme will leave on Wednesday, but few in worn-down camps in the central Bekaa Valley said they would sign up.

Rights groups fear the programme may not be as voluntary as it purports to be, at a time when concerns are growing about a policy of coercion they say is already in force in Turkey, where 3.6 million Syrians who have fled their country are registered.

"How are you supposed to go while there is a war?" said Manal, a 29-year-old Syrian woman eking out a precarious existence in a Bekaa Valley camp, where she is staying put.

This year, both host countries have ramped up pressure on refugees to leave.

In Lebanon, which is hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians, President Michel Aoun – whose term ends on Oct. 31 – said its General Security agency would facilitate voluntary returns, reprising its role from 2018 in the repatriation of around 400,000 who had escaped the violence that followed the 2011 protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

It checked with authorities in Damascus if those individuals had any arrest warrants against them and then provided transportation across the border.

United Nations refugee agency UNHCR did not back that process but its representatives were on-site if refugees had questions, and may play the same role this time.

Amnesty International said it understood upcoming returns would take place through the same mechanism.

However, "Syria is not safe for returns," said the global rights group's Syria researcher Diana Semaan. It found that past returnees had been subject to rights violations including detention, torture, rape and forced disappearance.

General Security did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment.

But Semaan said it was unlikely that refugees indicating they wanted to return had accurate information on security and service provision in their hometowns.

Manal's home province Deir Ezzor, Syria's easternmost, has like much of the country been carved into slices by the warring parties.

Islamist militants carry out hit-and-run attacks there, while U.S.-backed Kurds control some areas and government-aligned militias others.

Manal lost her two sons to an air strike there several years ago. She fled to Lebanon with her two daughters and earns a little over $2 a day sorting scrapwood to sell for bonfires.

"It's easier to live this humiliating life than lose more people from my life. I'm not ready to lose my girls in the war,” she told Reuters.

'TERRIFIED TO GO OUT'

In Turkey, meanwhile, advocacy group Human Rights Watch on Monday accused authorities of arbitrarily detaining and deporting hundreds of Syrian refugees this year, in violation of the non-refoulement principle of not forcing asylum seekers back to a country where they may be persecuted.

It said Turkish authorities had arrested Syrians in streets, homes and workplaces, then beaten them, pushed them to sign documents claiming they were voluntarily returning, and forced them into Syria at gunpoint.

Some were from government-held zones but were pushed into rebel-held areas where clashes broke out this month.

Turkey's interior ministry declined to comment to Reuters.

The head of its Presidency for Migration Management, Savas Unlu told HRW their allegations were "baseless" and that Turkey complied with international migration law.

HRW researcher Nadia Hardman told Reuters that Syrian refugees in Turkey were now "terrified to go out – men in particular. They say that fear of running into checkpoints reminds them of Syria."

Muhanad, a 30-year-old Syrian living in Turkey, was detained for just under a week after authorities found him in a province other than the one where he registered for protected status.

After threatening to deport him to government-held parts of Syria, where he is wanted, authorities dumped him and three dozen other Syrians at a junkyard hours away from their homes.

Muhanad now avoids public transport so he is not detained again.

"If I'm not working I just sit at home, and it's wearing down my mental health," he told Reuters.

"I can't go back to Syria, but I can't stay here either." (Reuters)

Germany's economic downturn deepened in October, the flash S&P Global composite purchasing managers' index showed on Monday as its reading fell to 44.1 from 45.7 in September, the lowest since May 2020, when the country was under a COVID lockdown.

High energy costs were a major factor, especially in manufacturing, where the rate of contraction was at its fastest in two-and-a-half years, though manufacturing was also hit by weaker demand, S&P Global said.

The flash manufacturing PMI fell to 45.7 from 47.8 the month before.

"The flash PMI data show the downturn in German business activity gathering pace at the start of the fourth quarter, adding to the growing signs of an impending recession," said Phil Smith, economics associate director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Germany's flash services PMI fell to 44.9 from 45.0. (Reuters)