Liz Truss looks set to become next Prime Minister, poll of Tory members finds
Liz Truss looks set to become the next Prime Minister, according to an influential poll of Tory members.
A survey run on the ConservativeHome website, known to some as the ‘Tory Bible’, shows the Foreign Secretary is ahead of Rishi Sunak by 32 points.
Of the 961 Tory members polled, 60% said they wanted Ms Truss to succeed Boris Johnson, and a pitiful 28% backed Mr Sunak.
It is the latest poll to put Ms Truss widely ahead of Rishi Sunak who has been dubbing himself the ‘underdog’, in an apparent bid to lower expectations.
The leadership frontrunner yesterday rejected calls to abolish abortion in Northern Ireland.
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Getty Images)
The Foreign Secretary was challenged by a Tory member in Belfast, who claimed Westminster had “undemocratically and unconstitutionally imposed abortion”.
In 2019 MPs at Westminster voted by an overwhelming majority in favour of legalising abortion in Northern Ireland at a time when power-sharing talks had failed to restore the devolved executive.
Responding to applause, Ms Truss said: “I’m afraid I don’t agree with you.
“We are a United Kingdom and we need all of our laws to apply right across the United Kingdom. That is what being a union is.”
The Foreign Secretary also said she “will not accept anything” that compromises on her demands over the Brexit deadlock in Northern Ireland.
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REUTERS)
She said UK courts must be “the ultimate arbiter” of a deal, east-west trade must be “free flowing” and people in Northern Ireland “can benefit from the tax benefits delivered by the UK Government” before she will sign off a new arrangement.
Stormont is in paralysis due to a breakdown of relations over the Northern Ireland protocol – a key part of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.
Britain is moving to override the Protocol and bin checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland – infuriating the EU.
Ms Truss said: “It might take time to get this Bill through the House of Lords, but the sooner we start, the sooner we will finish, and I am determined to get it done as quickly as possible.”
The leadership contest has been largely fought over plans to tackle the cost of living crisis.
Both candidates have vowed to cut taxes as part of their bids to succeed Boris Johnson.
But experts have warned those tax cut plans are unrealistic.
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The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said “permanent tax cuts” could increase pressure on the public purse.
But IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson, author of the research institute’s latest report, said: “The reality is that the UK has got poorer over the last year. That makes tax and spending decisions all the more difficult.
“It is hard to square the promises that both Ms Truss and Mr Sunak are making to cut taxes over the medium term with the absence of any specific measures to cut public spending and a presumed desire to manage the nation’s finances responsibly.”
A Truss campaign source, discussing the warning from the IFS, said that as prime minister, Ms Truss “would use an emergency budget to kickstart her plan to get our economy growing and put more money into the pockets of hardworking people”.
A Sunak campaign spokesman said the IFS analysis “drives a coach and horses through Liz’s economic plan”.
