LONDON — In the final hours before Tory lawmakers chose the two candidates who will face off to become next British prime minister, anxious supporters of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss were engaged in a desperate operation to scare up votes.
Truss, 47, had trailed in third position through successive ballots when her hard-line Brexiteer allies starting warning MPs of the potential consequences of her elimination. According to people with knowledge of her tactics, Truss’s outriders told wavering MPs that her defeat would open the door for former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage to make a comeback that could cost them their seats.
Truss added 27 votes to her tally from the previous ballot to edge out Penny Mordaunt by just eight votes and join former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak in the run-off vote of party members. But despite only squeaking through the ballot of MPs, Truss is now the clear favorite to be the U.K.’s next prime minister, with a YouGov poll suggesting 62% of members want her to win, compared with 38% backing Sunak.
