UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is in hot water over his wife's financial affairs, is considering "doing a Prince Harry" by leaving Britain for the US, the Daily Star has quoted unnamed sources as saying.
In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who currently reside in Santa Barbara, California, announced their decision to step down from senior roles in the Royal Family and move to North America in order to become financially independent.
The sources claimed that Sunak has a £5.5 million home in Santa Monica, California, and would work in Silicon Valley if he feels he is losing his chances of ever becoming prime minister.
A friend of the chancellor, in turn, argued that Sunak "isn't the sort of person who would stay in parliament for another 10 years waiting for his chance to come around again". According to the source, "if it became apparent he wasn't going to be prime minister, he would just go".
The claims were preceded by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday agreeing to the chancellor's request for the PM's ethics adviser Christian Geidt to open an investigation into Sunak's tax arrangements. A spokesperson for Johnson underscored that the PM is "confident that all the appropriate declarations were followed".
This followed Sunak's letter to the UK prime minister, in which the chancellor called for a government probe into whether all his interests were "appropriately declared" amid a scandal over his spouse's "non-dom" status.
In a subsequent tweet, Sunak emphasised that he had "always followed the rules" and that he hopes "such a review" by Lord Geidt "will provide further clarity" on his declarations of interests.
The remarks came after unnamed senior Tory members were cited by The Observer as saying that Sunak's chances of potentially becoming UK prime minister have been decimated due to the tax row. They suggested that the chancellor will be removed in a cabinet reshuffle by Johnson which may take place in the summer or the fall.
A recent opinion poll for The Observer showed that Sunak's approval rating had plummeted to a new low of -15, which means that the chancellor remains only slightly less unpopular than Johnson, whose political image has been tarnished by scandals, including a row over alleged COVID lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street.
The chancellor was widely seen as PM-in-waiting until a scandal over reports that his multi-millionaire wife Akshata Murty capitalised on tax-reducing non-domicile status, while he was also listed as a beneficiary of British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands trusts created to manage the business affairs of Murty's wealthy family.
The UK chancellor's wife is the daughter of the billionaire founder of the Indian-headquartered company Infosys, worth about £690 million ($898 million), in which she holds a 0.9% stake.
Labour leaders have been accusing Sunak of hypocrisy over his financial affairs as they point to the government raising national insurance for millions of ordinary Britons.