Race to be next UK prime minister closer than thought, poll shows

LONDON (Reuters) - Foreign minister Liz Truss, the frontrunner to replace British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has a smaller lead over her rival Rishi Sunak than previously thought, according to a poll of party members.

Truss is backed by 48% of Conservative Party members compared with 43% for former finance minister Sunak, according to the poll of 807 people by Italian data company Techne, carried out July 19-27.

This suggests a much tighter race than a previous poll of Conservative members carried out by YouGov on July 20-21 that showed Truss with a 24-point lead over Sunak.

Sunak and Truss are competing in a summer tour of hustings around Britain for the votes of about 200,000 Conservative members, who will select the next prime minister with the winner announced Sept. 5.

Taxes have dominated the race so far. Sunak has accused Truss of being "dishonest" with voters with her promises of major tax cuts as soon as she enters office. Sunak said he would make sure inflation is under control before cutting taxes, something Truss says would push the country into recession.

Over 60% of Conservative members in the Techne poll said Truss had better ideas on taxes than Sunak, and they also supported her plans to tackle inflation and handle immigration. However, respondents said Sunak was more trusted to deliver on Brexit and had better policies on education.

John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and one of Britain's leading experts on polling, said on Monday he was not sure the race was over.

"We have to bear in mind that since Tory MPs decided that this was the contest between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, we have had one, I repeat one, opinion poll of the people who will actually have a vote," he told GB News.

Truss was criticised by the main opposition party and some Conservative lawmakers on Tuesday after she vowed to save billions of pounds a year by tailoring public sector pay to the cost of living in the region where people work rather than having a national pay agreement.

Sunak supporter Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, said he was "speechless” at Truss’ plan.

"There is simply no way you can do this without a massive pay cut for 5.5m people including nurses, police officers and our armed forces outside London," he said.

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said Truss’s plans showed the Conservative government’s commitment to reducing inequalities between the north and south of Britain "is dead".