United Kingdom Defense Minister Ben Wallace announced Saturday he will not run for reelection.
Wallace has been the defense minister since 2019 and a member of parliament of Wyre and Preston North, and then a previous constituency in northwest England since 2005. He has also chosen not to stand as MP for the next election, according to a statement he made to the Times.
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The defense minister replaced Penny Mordant four years ago under the prime ministry of Boris Johnson. Wallace had always alluded to stepping down from the position once Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reshuffled the Cabinet, which is expected to happen this September.
After then-Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned in October, Wallace was considered a front-runner to replace her. However, he claimed at the time he would not run for the position due to family reasons.
As an army veteran, Wallace also supported Finland’s admission to NATO, claiming that it “made us safer” to have more European countries in the alliance. Wallace was also a proponent of assisting Ukraine in its fight against Russia by providing Storm Shadow cruise missiles in an amount that was “enough to satisfy the Ukrainian demand for that capability.”
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“I will personally continue to support Ukraine all the way, for as long as it takes, but national Parliaments often have competing needs and Ukraine and the UK need to continue to encourage that strong support by the use of facts and friendship,” Wallace wrote in a Facebook post Friday.
A general election in the U.K. will be held sometime in the next 18 months.
