Red Rishi: Is a Brexit-backing Thatcherite too left-wing for the UK Conservatives? – POLITICO Europe

LONDON Hes the millionaire ex-chancellor who loves small states and sound money; the Brexit-voting former hedge fund boss who attended one of Englands most exclusive fee-paying schools.

Yet in the frenzied race to replace Boris Johnson as U.K. prime minister, its Rishi Sunak who now finds himself painted as the high tax, pro-EU candidate of the Tory left.

Its been quite a ride for a man described only four months ago as a Thatcherite in trainers by the left-leaning Guardian newspaper.

Rishi blasted on socialist taxes, the front page of the right-wing Daily Mail screamed last week, promoting an op-ed article from Johnsons loyal lieutenant Jacob Rees-Mogg. Sunak has squandered the Conservative Partys decade-long efforts to build a competitive tax regime, Rees-Mogg warned.

Liz Truss: Ill spike Sunaks tax hike, its sister paper the Mail on Sunday had splashed the previous weekend, celebrating the foreign secretarys true blue campaign. Two days later, the Mail front page said ominously: Truss Back me or itll be Rishi. It sounded like a warning to readers.

Plenty of Tory MPs remain unconvinced by this Get Rishi campaign.

Sunak picked up 118 votes from his colleagues in Tuesdays fourth-round leadership ballot, retaining his place as the contests front-runner and leaving him just two short of the 120 required to secure his place in the final head-to-head.

But his hopes of actually winning that contest were badly undermined by a YouGov opinion poll of Conservative Party members the rank-and-file footsoldiers who will pick the winner from the final two candidates which found he would be well beaten by either of his remaining opponents in the crucial head-to-head vote.

This glaring disparity between the views of Tory MPs and the partys grassroots members is in part a reflection of a successful effort by enemies to undermine his record after two and a half years as Johnsons chancellor.

Opponents have accused Sunak of raising taxes to socialist levels a blasphemous accusation in a party that idolizes the free-marketeer Margaret Thatcher.

Sunaks critics repeatedly attack his tenure at the Treasury, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and consequently the heaviest public borrowing since World War II. Sunaks attempts to reduce the burden on public finances through a national insurance hike for workers, and the reversal of business tax cuts, have enraged his enemies further.

Rishi, you have raised taxes to the highest level in 70 years, Truss told him pointedly in Sunday nights ITV hustings. That is not going to drive economic growth.

The socialist tag reflects the size of the tax burden, the size of the state and inflation, added an unimpressed Tory aide.

Improbably, Sunak also finds himself vulnerable to right-wing attacks on Brexit, despite having voted Leave in 2016. Some Brexiteers fear he would blink at the prospect of a damaging trade war with the EU, should relations deteriorate further in the months ahead.

Indeed it is Remain-voting Truss, now reinvented as the darling of the Tory right, who is seen as the tax-cutting, Brexit true-believer.

[Truss] is the only candidate thats going to get [Brexit] done. All of the others will be run by the civil service, and will cave to them, Tory Brexiteer Marcus Fysh told Nigel Farage on GB News this week.

Sunaks supporters claim to be relaxed by this angle of attack.

Actually its ill-advised, because it just serves to highlight that Truss didnt support Brexit in the first place, one former political aide supportive of Sunak said. It sort of forces him to come out and explain that he did.

Indeed, Sunak supporters were gleeful when the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they backed Brexit in a televised debate on Sunday.

Truss was clearly desperate to raise her hand, but couldnt, the former adviser said with relish.

Nevertheless, with their candidate tanking in party membership polls, Team Sunak has felt obliged to launch counterattacks against attempts to paint him as a soft-centered Tory.

At the weekend they released a tongue-in-cheek 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 pointedly includes an image of his rival Truss promoting the Im In message that was one of the slogans of the campaign to remain inside the European Union.

And in an article for the Brexit-backing Sunday Telegraph, Sunak promised to rewrite former EU laws still getting in the way of British businesses, and outlined plans for a new Brexit minister and Brexit delivery department if he wins.

Sunak has also fought back on his economic record, labeling Trusss own borrowing plans socialism at the ITV hustings Sunday night.

Hes not a socialist. Its absolute nonsense. He just believes in sound money. Theyre the ones planning to borrow money to spend on things we cant afford, one senior backbench supporter said of Sunaks rivals.

To call the Conservative candidate a socialist, at least in my generation, it doesnt make sense at all. I think its a smear, a veteran former Tory MP added. The bigger influence is being chancellor of the exchequer, and seeing the books.

Another Tory MP backing Sunak believes many MPs are actually very grumpy about what the government was forced to do to prop up the economy when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.

Few of those branding Sunak a socialist raised objections at the time to the billions of pounds released for the furlough scheme, the MP pointed out.

I dont remember people saying let businesses in my constituency go to the wall. I dont remember people saying dont help people on furlough, the MP added.Of course its big government weve just had COVID.

But the anti-Sunak political adviser quoted above insisted the COVID-19 outlay had been used by the Treasury as justification for sort of total retrenchment from Johnsons broader post-Brexit plans.

Will Tanner, director of the center-right Onward think tank, said in truth, Sunaks campaign had been notable for the fact that he hasnt wedded himself to an ideological pitch.

Its been relatively kind of centrist and establishment, actually, he added.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the center-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 element of Conservatism, and the lower taxes element of Conservatism.

One further dynamic clouds the picture over Sunak the manner of his departure from government.

His dramatic resignation earlier this month helped precipitate Johnsons final downfall, and came after months of what Johnsons allies believed was blatant leadership plotting.

This is a Conservative colleague who turned on the prime minister, the hostile adviser quoted above replied, when asked about the socialism charge against Sunak.

Indeed, supporters of Sunak believe many of the attacks are coming from Johnson loyalists intent on revenge, fearful their own ministerial careers could now be in jeopardy.

There is a small cabal of people around Boris, a group of ministers, who frankly would not be ministers in any other government. And theyre out to get him, the senior backbencher quoted above said.

But that doesnt mean their efforts to rebrand him are not damaging his prospects of becoming prime minister.

Hes just obviously much better than the rest of them, one supportive Tory strategist said. But hes not where he needs to be on tax. If the others dont blow themselves up during the campaign which they blatantly could then honestly, Im not sure he wins.

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Red Rishi: Is a Brexit-backing Thatcherite too left-wing for the UK Conservatives? - POLITICO Europe