Most of the militants of the British Conservative Party prefer that Boris Johnson continue governing, before the two candidates to succeed him, according to a survey published this Sunday by the newspaper The Observer.
At this point, the Foreign Minister, Liz Truss, leads the Conservative Party primary race with a projected vote of 61%, according to a survey by the Opinium company. Instead, it is estimated that the other candidate to lead the party, the former Minister of Economy Rishi Sunakhas an intention to vote of 39%.
The Foreign Minister, Liz Trusscontinues to lead the conservative primary race, with a projected vote of 61%, against 39% of the rival, the former Minister of Economy Rishi Sunak, according to the Opinium firm survey. But it is noteworthy that, among the members who support Truss, 63% say that “ideally” they would prefer Johnson to remain in office. And the 68% of members who favor Sunak would also ideally want Johnson to remain prime minister.
Affiliates choose new party leader and prime minister
The 160,000 party members still have two weeks to cast their vote and the results will be known on September 5. They will thus choose the top leader of the formation who, at the same time, will inherit the office of Downing Street. The dispute is between Truss and Sunak, but Truss is the one with the most numbers to end up ruling the party and the country.
At the moment, about three out of every ten affiliates have already voted, which represents 29%. This data, according to Opinium, means that Sunak still has technical margin to change the result. Now, to achieve this, he would have to convince all the undecided and a part of those who position themselves on Truss’s side.
With everything, however, Chris Curtis, responsible for the poll, has expressed that “right now it is very unlikely that Truss will not be the next prime minister in September.”
Truss and Sunak agree on foreign policy with Russia
Truss and Sunak disagree on many aspects, such as economics, but on foreign policy towards Russia they are in complete agreement. Thus, they agree on the heavy-handed strategy with Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. In this sense, both are committed to increasing the punishments against the Kremlin.
“We need to tighten the sanctions on Russia because right now its president, Vladimir Putin, is able to finance his overwhelming war machine thanks to the oil and gas revenues he is receiving,” Truss said in a televised debate with Sunak on March 4. August. On this point, the candidate has promised to increase the defense budget up to 3% of GDP by 2030.
In turn, in the television debate, Sunak assured that as prime minister “he would go further” in the measures to isolate russia. In fact, he emphasized the fact that he contributed from Economy to design the current sanctions. “I myself put in place the measures that are creating the biggest problems for Putin,” he said.
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