King Charles III will return to London today as it was revelaed Rishi Sunak will be the UK's next Prime Minister.

The King will be travelling to London this afternoon, as previously planned, from the private royal estate of Sandringham, it is understood.

However, it is believed to be unlikely that the King will meet with outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss today, meaning he will be unable to accept her resignation, or appoint her successor, Mr Sunak.

Mr Sunak, who failed to become Prime Minister after losing the last leadership contest to Liz Truss seven weeks ago, was the only Tory MP to receive the backing of more than 100 of his parliamentary colleagues.

READ MORE: Southampton's Rishi Sunak becomes next Prime Minister as Penny Mordaunt drops out

Rishi Sunak in profile

The former Chancellor was initially opposed by Boris Johnson, who backed out of the leadership race over the weekend despite claiming to have received sufficient support from MPs to continue, and Penny Mordaunt, who was unable to gather the 100 backers needed to proceed in the contest.

Victory for Mr Sunak means the Tories are on to their third prime minister since they won the 2019 general election under Mr Johnson’s leadership.

Veteran Tory Sir Christopher Hope joined Labour in demanding a fresh general election, arguing it is the only solution for the next leader now the Conservative Party is “ungovernable”.

The MP for Christchurch in Dorset, which he held last time with a near-25,000 vote majority, told Today: “The best way they can get that respect is by winning a mandate with the people, and that’s why I think a general election is essentially the only answer, otherwise we’re just going to go from bad to worse.

“The party is ungovernable in the House of Commons and so we’re going to have continuing rebellions as we try to change policies and so on, and so I must say I’m very pessimistic, I’m very angry, and I feel that Boris has been let down once again and undermined by our parliamentary colleagues.”