Sunak vs Truss... Who Will Be the Savior to Rescue the Crisis-Stricken UK Conservative Party?

Conservative Party Support After 12 Years in Power Falls 11%P Behind Labour Party Due to Recent Series of Failures

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] The ruling Conservative Party in the UK has been trailing the opposition Labour Party in party support since the end of last year. According to a survey conducted by UK polling firm YouGov on the 13th and 14th, the Conservative Party's support rate was 29%, 11 percentage points behind the Labour Party. Around the same time last year, the Conservatives led the Labour Party by about 10 percentage points in polls.

The Conservative Party has been in power for over 12 years since winning the general election in May 2010. The current UK Parliament, with a five-year term, will be automatically dissolved on December 17, 2024, if there is no early election. Although there is still more than two years left until the next general election, the Conservative Party's sense of crisis is greater than ever due to successive failures of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet. Johnson announced his resignation on the 7th, and the new Conservative Party leader, who will become the next prime minister, is scheduled to be announced on September 5. Attention is focused on whether the final candidates, former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, can become the saviors of the embattled Conservative Party.

◆ Sunak Begins Campaign in Thatcher’s Hometown = Former Chancellor Sunak began his first campaign rally on the 23rd in Grantham, the hometown of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This was to target the majority of Conservative Party members, who are older white men nostalgic for the Thatcher era. According to a January 2020 survey of Conservative Party members by Queen Mary University, 63% were male, about twice as many as females. By age group, those aged 65 and over accounted for 39%, the largest share, followed by 25-49 years at 36%, 50-64 years at 19%, and 18-24 years at 6%.

Sunak ranked first in all five rounds of the prime ministerial leadership contest. However, unlike the leadership election held among Conservative MPs, the final vote is conducted among the entire Conservative Party membership, numbering between 150,000 and 180,000. In final vote opinion polls, Sunak has been trailing Foreign Secretary Truss.

According to a survey of 730 Conservative Party members released by YouGov on the 21st, 62% said they supported Truss. The proportion supporting Sunak was only 38%. Truss widened the gap with Sunak by 5 percentage points compared to previous surveys.

[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

However, these results differ from polls conducted among the general electorate rather than Conservative Party members. In surveys of the entire electorate, Sunak is more likely to lead the next general election to victory.

In another poll conducted by Ipsos on the 20th and 21st, when asked about the likelihood of winning the next general election, 36% favored Sunak, while only 19% favored Truss. If Truss, who has strong support from hardline conservatives, becomes leader, the probability of losing the general election is actually higher.

In a poll conducted by JL Partners for The Telegraph and released on the 16th, 60% said Sunak would make a good prime minister, higher than Truss’s 48%. Conversely, 32% said Truss would not make a good prime minister, compared to 11% for Sunak.

◆ Economists Cast Their Vote for Sunak = The reason Sunak is unpopular among Conservative Party members is attributed to his tax policies. During his tenure as Chancellor, he pushed for tax increases to secure fiscal soundness, and while all his rivals in the leadership race advocated tax cuts, Sunak did not waver in his stance.

Truss pledged to immediately reduce corporate and personal income taxes upon becoming prime minister. The Johnson government raised the National Health Service (NHS) national contribution rate by 1.5 percentage points in April this year to alleviate the COVID-19 impact and expand social welfare support. Truss announced plans to lower the contribution rate again. She also promised to repeal Sunak’s plan, announced during his tenure as Chancellor, to raise the corporate tax rate from 19% to 25% starting in 2023.

In his Grantham speech, Sunak argued that Truss’s tax cuts would worsen inflation. He emphasized credible tax cuts, stating that taxes would be reduced only after price stability and fiscal soundness are secured. He also promised to radically reform the way corporations are taxed.

Truss also advocates increasing defense spending. She announced plans to raise the defense spending ratio to GDP to 2.5% by 2026 and further increase it to 3% by 2030. In contrast, Sunak said he would maintain defense spending at the current level, though he is open to reviewing the current defense spending ratio of about 2% of GDP.

A Bloomberg survey of nine economists on the 22nd found that eight believed Sunak would manage the economy better. Only one economist supported Truss. Economists agreed that if Truss became prime minister, the Bank of England’s tightening measures would accelerate, supporting Sunak’s claim that Truss’s tax cuts would fuel inflation.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.