Faltering candidate may be saved by second Tory vote

A little-noticed rule change allowing Tory members to vote twice in this summer's leadership election will be key to Rishi Sunak's hopes of salvaging his floundering bid to become prime minister, experts have told The Independent.

- ANDREW WOODCOCK

With online voting opening on 1 August, the former chancellor has only a matter of days to overturn rival Liz Truss's polling advantage before tens of thousands of Conservative members cast their ballots and go on holiday, making tomorrow's televised head-to-head debate on the BBC possibly his last chance to win over many of those with a vote.

But an unprecedented "second thoughts" option allows the estimated 160,000 party faithful to revise their vote if they change their minds during the six-week campaign - something that supporters believe favours the former chancellor, who they think will shine as his opponent's tax-cutting plans are put under scrutiny.

Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner today dismissed the election as a "warped pantomime to win over the unrepresentative Tory selectorate... entirely divorced from the priorities of the British people".

She said whoever wins should call an immediate general election to "re-seek a mandate" from voters.

And prominent Truss backer Iain Duncan Smith said the newstyle voting system - which allows one online vote and one postal, with only the latest of the two counting - will "create nightmares" by introducing a "complication too far" to a campaign lasting longer than a general election.

Senior Tories fear that the summer-long contest, featuring 12 hustings across the UK, will damage the party's image further as the two contenders kick lumps out of one another in a bitter struggle to succeed Boris Johnson.

But polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice of Strathclyde University told The Independent that the real battle may be over long before voting closes on 2 September. He judged as "credible" a recent YouGov poll that gave the foreign secretary a 24-point lead over the former chancellor, on 62 per cent to Sunak's 38.