The five Conservative candidates still vying to be Britain’s next prime minister will face off in a second televised debate on Sunday, renewing their feuds over tax policy and issues such as transgender rights.
With no clear candidate to replace Boris Johnson, who is stepping down following a series of scandals, the battle for the next leader remains unpredictable and increasingly fractious, exposing rifts within the ruling Conservative Party.
Ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak has emerged as the favourite among the 358 Conservative lawmakers, who will vote again this week to narrow the field to a final two.
According to a JL Partners poll for the Sunday Telegraph, nearly half of Conservative voters thought he would make a good prime minister, ahead of foreign minister Liz Truss and junior minister Penny Mordaunt.
Truss, on the other hand, has widespread support, including from Johnson’s most ardent supporters, and junior minister Penny Mordaunt has topped polls of the 200,000 Conservative Party members who will ultimately decide who becomes Conservative leader and thus prime minister.
In a sign of how close the race is, a survey of Conservative Party members conducted on Saturday for the Conservative Home website found that former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch was now ahead of the others, with Truss in second and Mordaunt, the bookmakers’ favourite, dropping to third.
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