Senior Tories warn: if we can’t offer policies to win over young, we’re ‘sunk’

Rishi Sunak has been warned by leading Conservatives that his policies must appeal to a new generation at the polls in order to reverse the party’s unpopularity with millennials. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP

Senior Tories are urging Rishi Sunak to use his next manifesto to address their party’s alarming unpopularity among younger voters, amid increasing concern that the Conservatives could be “sunk” without urgent action to win over the under-40s.

With mounting anxiety among moderate Tories that the party is failing to prioritise policies on net zero and help for renters that could attract younger voters, Tom Tugendhat, the cabinet minister who is among the figureheads of the party’s liberal wing, has become one of the most senior figures to publicly urge a rethink.