LONDON –
UK leader candidates seek to court right before voting Candidates to become Britain’s next prime minister polished their right-wing credentials on Sunday as they sought to stay in the race to succeed Boris Johnson.
Many of the five remaining candidates highlighted Brexit and immigration issues as they tried to woo other Conservative lawmakers ahead of a third round of voting on Monday, when another contender will drop out.
Although the eventual winner will automatically become prime minister, the contenders must appeal to a small group of party members, who tend to be whiter, older and more right-wing than the general public. The candidates face a series of votes from lawmakers this week, who will narrow the field to two, before facing a runoff between some 180,000 Conservative Party members.
Writing in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, who is the favorite among Conservative lawmakers, vowed to break European Union laws as Britain leaves its position outside the bloc.
Appealing to the party’s vote for Brexit, Sunak wrote that it will have “removed or reformed all EU law, red tape and red tape that is still on our statute book and slows economic growth” by the time the next elections if he becomes the next prime minister.
Meanwhile, Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, who unexpectedly became a bookmaker’s favorite last week, was forced to defy accusations that she had pushed for a policy to remove the requirement that trans people obtain a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before being able to legally change. her gender when she was Minister for Equality in Theresa May’s government.
She told the BBC’s Sunday Morning program that she had handled a consultation with health professionals, but no policy had been developed while she was at work.
Despite the demographics of the membership, the race to succeed Johnson has been called the most diverse for a British prime minister. Sunak and Kemi Badenoch, a former equality minister, are non-white, while three of the remaining five contenders are women.
Badenoch, whose parents are from Nigeria, remains little known. But he has seen his star grow after his public appearance in a television debate on Friday and led a poll of party members by the ConservativeHome website on Sunday.
She would be the first black female prime minister and, at 42, the youngest in more than 250 years.
Despite his record, he has made immigration control a key pillar of his political discourse, pledging Sunday to “do whatever it takes to deal with the small boat problem.” More than 14,000 migrants have made the 20-mile journey to Britain across the English Channel from France so far this year.
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is touting her international experience, as Britain’s top diplomat and former trade secretary, and vowing to take a tough line with the European Union in post-Brexit trade disputes.
The final candidate, Tom Tugendhat, follows his colleagues after the second round of voting. But he is making a virtue of never having been in the Boris Johnson government. He is calling for a “clean start” after months of scandals that finally saw Johnson signal his resignation.