NEARLY half of Conservative party members think Rishi Sunak would make a better leader than Boris Johnson, according to a new poll.
The survey from YouGov asked 1005 Tory members if they thought the current Chancellor would make a better leader of their party than the current PM.
Results show that 46% of those questioned think Sunak would be better than Johnson, while 30% think he would be the same and 16% think he would do worse.
Some 63% of Tory members who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum think Sunak would be a better leader Johnson, with only 6% saying he would be worse.
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Enthusiasm for Johnson as Tory leader has waned after a year of scandal which has seen many party faithful lose interest and focus on Sunak or Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as potential leaders at the next General Election.
While 61% of those polled think Johnson is doing well as Tory leader, it is a steep drop from 85% who said the same in July 2020, when YouGov conducted a similar survey of Tory members.
Signalling further problems for Johnson, 38% of members think he is doing badly as leader, a sharp increase that the 5% who thought the same in July 2020.
Members were also split on whether they think Johnson can be trusted to tell the truth, with 45% backing him and 39% saying he cannot be trusted and 16% saying they don't know.
The split is even starker when Tories were asked if they think Johnson will be leader at the next election with 47% saying he is "likely" to be head of the party and 45% saying it's "unlikely".
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Sunak topped the list of who Tories want to replace Johnson with 33% of the vote, next was Truss (25%), followed by former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt (8%) and Michael Gove took a distant fourth with 6%.
Gove was followed by Sajid Javid (5%), Priti Patel (4%) and Dominic Raab (4%).
The poll was conducted for Sky News with Tory members questioned between December 30 and January 6.
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