However, in the frantic race to replace Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, it is Rishi Sunak who now finds himself the high-tax, pro-EU candidate of the Tory left. It’s been quite a ride for a man described just four months ago as a “Thatcherite in trainers” by the left-wing Guardian newspaper. “Reese blasted over ‘socialist’ taxes,” screamed the front page of the right-wing Daily Mail last week, promoting an article by Johnson’s staunch lieutenant, Jacob Rees-Mogg. “Shunak has squandered the Conservative Party’s decades of efforts to build a competitive tax regime,” Rees-Mogg warned. “Liz Truss: I’ll increase Sunak’s tax hike,” blasted her sister paper the Mail on Sunday last weekend, celebrating the Foreign Secretary’s “true blue” campaign. Two days later, the Mail’s front page read ominously: “Truss — Bring me back or it’ll be Rishi.” It sounded like a warning to readers. Many Tory MPs remain convinced by this ‘Get Rishi’ campaign. Sunak collected 118 votes from his colleagues in Tuesday’s fourth-round leadership vote, retaining his position as the contest’s front-runner and leaving him just two short of the 120 needed to secure his place in the final. But his hopes of actually winning that contest have been badly dented by a YouGov poll of Conservative Party members – the hardliners who will pick the winner from the final two candidates – which found he would be beaten by one of his remaining rivals in the run-off frontal voting. This stark difference between the views of Tory MPs and members of the party’s grassroots partly reflects a successful attempt by enemies to undermine Johnson’s record after two and a half years as chancellor. Opponents accused Mr Sunak of raising taxes to socialist levels – a blasphemous accusation in a party that worships free trade Margaret Thatcher. Sunak’s critics have repeatedly attacked his tenure at the Treasury, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and consequently the heaviest public borrowing since World War II. Mr Sunak’s efforts to reduce the burden on public finances through an increase in national insurance for workers, and the reversal of business tax cuts, further angered his enemies. Conservative leadership candidate Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss during Britain’s Next Prime Minister: The ITV Debate at Riverside Studios in London, England | Jonathan Hordle/ITV via Getty Images “Rishi, you’ve raised taxes to the highest level in 70 years,” Truss told him sharply on ITV’s Sunday Night Live. “This is not going to lead to economic growth.” “The ‘socialist’ label reflects the size of the tax burden, the size of the state and inflation,” added an unidentified Tory aide.

It’s all about the EU

Sunak is also unlikely to find himself vulnerable to right-wing attacks on Brexit, despite having voted Leave in 2016. Some Brexiteers fear he will blink at the prospect of a damaging trade war with the EU if relations deteriorate further in the coming months . Indeed, it is Remain-voting Truss, now rediscovered as a darling of the Tory right, who is seen as the true Brexiteer who cuts taxes. “[Truss] he is the only candidate he is going to get [Brexit] Done. Everyone else will be run by the public service and fall to them,” Tory backbencher Marcus Fish told Nigel Farage on GB News this week. Sunak’s supporters claim to relax from this “angle of attack”. “It’s actually misguided, because it just highlights that Truss didn’t support Brexit in the first place,” said a former political aide who supported Sunak. “It forces him to come out and explain that he did it.”

Indeed, Sunak’s supporters were delighted when the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they supported Brexit in a televised debate on Sunday. “Truss was clearly desperate to raise her hand, but she couldn’t,” the ex-counsel said with pleasure. Nevertheless, with their candidate rising in the party’s membership polls, the Sunak team felt compelled to launch counter-attacks against attempts to paint him as a soft-centre Tory. At the weekend they released a video titled ‘Rishi & Brexit: A Short History’, explaining how he went against the advice of his superiors as a young MP to campaign to leave the EU. It prominently includes an image of Truss’s opponent promoting the message “I’m In” which was one of the slogans of the campaign to stay within the European Union.
And in an op-ed for the pro-Brexit Sunday Telegraph, Sunak promised to rewrite previous EU laws that still “hinder” British businesses and outlined plans for a new Brexit minister and Brexit delivery department if he wins .

No, you’re the socialist

Sunak also hit back at his financial record, branding Truss’ borrowing plans “socialism” at the ITV hustings on Sunday night. “He is not a socialist. It’s utter nonsense. He just believes in good money. They are the ones planning to borrow money to spend on things we cannot afford,” said a senior backbench supporter of Sunak’s opponents. “Calling the Conservative candidate a ‘socialist’, at least in my generation, makes no sense at all. I think it’s a stain,” added a veteran former Tory MP. “The biggest influence is being Chancellor of the Exchequer and seeing the books.” Another Tory MP who supports Sunak believes many MPs are actually “very grumpy” about what the government was “forced” to do to support the economy when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Few of those who label Sunak a socialist objected at the time to the billions of pounds being freed up for the leave regime, the MP pointed out. “I don’t remember people saying ‘let the businesses in my constituency go to the wall’. I don’t remember them saying ‘don’t help people on leave,’” the MP added. “Of course it’s big government — we just had COVID.” But the anti-Sunak political adviser quoted above insisted that the COVID-19 spending had been used by the Treasury as “justification for a kind of across-the-board cut” from Johnson’s wider post-Brexit plans. Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, departs to deliver the 2020 Annual Budget at Downing Street in London, England | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Will Tanner, director of the center-right think tank Onward, said in fact that Sunak’s campaign was “remarkable for not being wedded to an ideological pitch.” “It was relatively centrist and established, actually,” he added. Torsten Bell, chief executive of the centre-left Resolution Foundation, said Sunak was “obviously not a socialist in any meaningful use of the word” but had fallen victim to the tension between “the fiscal conservatism of Conservatism and the lower tax element of Conservatism”.

Revenge is sweet

Another dynamic clouds the picture over Sunak – the manner of his departure from government. His dramatic resignation earlier this month helped hasten Johnson’s eventual downfall and came after months of what Johnson’s allies believed was flagrant leadership. “This is a Conservative colleague who turned against the prime minister,” replied the hostile councilor quoted above, when asked about the charge of “socialism” against Sunak. Indeed, Sunak’s supporters believe that many of the attacks are coming from Johnson loyalists bent on revenge, fearing that their own ministerial careers could now be in jeopardy. “There is a small group of people around Boris, a group of ministers, who frankly would not be ministers in any other government. And they are out for the taking,” said the senior bench quoted above. But that doesn’t mean their efforts to rebrand him aren’t hurting his chances of becoming prime minister. “He’s obviously a lot better than the rest,” said one supportive Tory strategist. “But they are not where they should be fiscally. If the others don’t blow up during the campaign – which they blatantly could – then frankly, I’m not sure he’ll win.”