Struggling British leadership candidate Sunak says contest is in 'early days'

LONDON (REUTERS) - Former British finance minister Rishi Sunak said Wednesday (Aug 3) it was still "early days" in the contest to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a day after an opinion poll showed his rival, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, had extended her lead in the race to be Britain's next leader.

The ruling Conservative Party is choosing a new leader after Mr Johnson was forced to announce his resignation when ministers resigned en masse from his government, citing a series of scandals and missteps over the last 12 months.

Mr Sunak, whose resignation helped trigger Mr Johnson's downfall, and Foreign Secretary Truss are the two remaining candidates in the contest.

"It's still early days, and I'm looking forward to meeting many more of you in the coming weeks," Mr Sunak said in a tweet ahead of campaigning among members of the ruling Conservative Party.

The party's members will vote by postal ballot or online over the next few weeks, with a winner announced on Sept 5. Plans to allow voters to change their mind at the last minute were abandoned due to concerns about the security of the online voting system.

The winner of the party leadership contest will inherit a parliamentary majority and, therefore, become prime minister.

On Tuesday (Aug 2), an opinion poll showed Ms Truss held a 34-point lead over Mr Sunak among Conservative Party members, with 86 per cent telling pollster YouGov they had decided how they would vote.

However, polling officials say there are doubts about the reliability of measuring the support among the roughly 200,000 Conservative party members. Far fewer polls are carried out on this group, who make up about 0.3 per cent of the British population, than among the public before elections.

Ms Truss suffered the first major misstep of her campaign on Tuesday when she was forced to backtrack on one of her most striking pledges a day after announcing it following a backlash from fellow Conservatives and opposition parties.

She had set out plans to save billions of pounds a year in government spending in a pledge opponents said would require cutting the pay of public sector workers, including nurses and teachers, outside of the wealthy southeast of England.

Mr Sunak has struggled in the race, partly due to his role in Mr Johnson's resignation and over his record in government.

As finance minister, he implemented tax increases to pay for government support offered during the Covid-19 pandemic and to help Britons subsidise soaring energy bills. That has drawn criticism from many activists in the historically low-tax party.

Mr Sunak has pledged to cut taxes over time to avoid stoking inflation, but Ms Truss has said she would act immediately to lower the tax burden.

"Almost undoubtedly Mr Sunak's problems are a combination of policy position and personality," Mr John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and one of Britain's leading polling experts, told Times Radio.

"He tells us that he's an instinctive tax cutter, but of course for good or ill as chancellor he has presided over an increase in taxation and spending, and that is something which causes angst within large sections of the Conservative Party," said Professor Curtice.

The delivery of ballot papers to Conservative members to vote has been delayed, and plans to allow people to change their votes during the contest have been scrapped, amid concerns hackers could change members' ballots.

Under the initial rules of the race, party members would have been able to change their votes after submitting them if they decided to switch their support.

The Conservative Party said it had enhanced security around the ballot process after discussions with Britain's National Cyber Security Centre.