Liz Truss launches Tory leadership campaign ahead of second-round vote

Receive free Conservative Party UK updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Conservative Party UK news every morning.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss on Thursday attempted to kick-start her campaign for the Conservative party leadership as she tried to unite the right behind her bid to overtake frontrunners Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.

As Tory MPs prepared to vote in the second round of the contest to choose a new leader and prime minister, Truss’s official launch served up some red meat to the party’s low-tax, pro-Brexit wing.

In a slightly stilted performance, Truss said she would cut taxes, shrink the state and continue to challenge Brussels by pushing ahead with her bill to overturn the Northern Ireland protocol, part of the Brexit deal.

Truss, who is backed by prime minister Boris Johnson’s allies, also struck a tough note on foreign policy issues, saying that if she became prime minister she would “continue to lead the free world in opposing Putin”.

The Tory leadership race is wide open, with none of the six remaining candidates opening up a decisive lead; recriminations and negative briefings have dominated the early stages of the campaign.

After the first round former chancellor Rishi Sunak had the support of 88 Tory MPs; he needs at least 120 votes — one-third of the 358 Tory MPs — to be sure of reaching the final shortlist of two candidates.

Meanwhile, trade minister Penny Mordaunt has the most momentum after winning 67 votes, while Truss won a disappointing 50. Truss’s team hopes that supporters of other rightwing candidates will end up backing her.

Suella Braverman, who won 32 votes in the first round on Wednesday, and Kemi Badenoch, with 40, are candidates whose supporters could switch to her. “The right has to unite,” said one cabinet minister backing Truss.

Truss vowed at her launch to reverse Sunak’s national insurance rise and his plan to increase corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent; she also promised new “low tax, low regulation” economic zones.

She said she would be “honest” about her economic plan, although her suggestion that she could fund her programme by rescheduling Covid-19 debt is likely to attract scrutiny from economists.

Most Tory MPs believe Sunak will reach the final shortlist of two next week — party members will make the final choice — but he needs to prove on Thursday he still has momentum.

Sunak sounded tetchy in a BBC Today programme interview on Thursday when challenged about his previous possession of a US green card and the role of former chief whip Sir Gavin Williamson in his campaign.

Asked whether he was too rich to understand the hardship facing ordinary people, Sunak said: “I don’t judge people by their bank accounts, I judge them by their character, and I think people can judge me by my actions over the past couple of years.”

Meanwhile Mordaunt, a favourite of party activists, is also coming under increasing criticism now that she has emerged as the bookmakers’ favourite.

Truss said she would be “ready to be prime minister from Day 1”, in an implied dig at the relatively inexperienced Mordaunt. One ally of Truss said Mordaunt would “need stabilisers”.

Lord David Frost, former Brexit minister, said he had “grave reservations” about Mordaunt, who worked alongside him on EU matters in the Cabinet Office, in a strong attack on her credibility.

“I’m sorry to say this, I felt she did not master the detail that was necessary when we were in negotiations,” he told TalkTV. “She wouldn’t always deliver tough messages to the EU when that was necessary.”

Frost added: “She wasn’t always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where she was. It became such a problem that after six months I had to ask the prime minister to move her on.”