Alun Cairns switches support from Sunak to Truss

Former cabinet minister Alun Cairns has switched his support from Rishi Sunak to Liz Truss in the Conservative leadership race.

Mr Cairns said Ms Truss was the best candidate to keep the UK together.

The ex-Welsh secretary was in cabinet from 2016 to 2019, before resigning over links to a Senedd candidate accused of sabotaging a rape trial.

Current Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland became the first cabinet minister to defect from Mr Sunak to Ms Truss.

Mr Cairns argued the union would be more likely to break up under Mr Sunak, compared to his opponent and praised Liz Truss for her "positive ambition for our country".

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Ms Truss has adopted a more abrasive approach to the first ministers of the devolved administrations during the campaign to succeed Boris Johnson in No 10.

She described Scotland's Nicola Sturgeon as an "attention seeker" who is "best ignored" and called Wales's Mark Drakeford a "low energy version of Jeremy Corbyn".

Mr Cairns' move comes ahead of Tory party hustings in Scotland and Northern Ireland this week, with polls suggesting Ms Truss is the favourite to win the contest.

Liz Truss is the favourite to win the race to become the next prime minister

Writing in The Mail+, Mr Cairns said: "At the outset of the campaign, I met Rishi Sunak to discuss the future of the Union and was content with his responses. I chose to support him.

"However, as the campaign has developed, the risks to our union have become more apparent. There is a need to break out of the current orthodoxy. The future of our union depends on it.

"For this reason, I have concluded that with the positive ambition for our country and imagination she has shown, alongside her strong track record as a reformer, Liz Truss is best placed to secure our Union."

The winner will be announced on 5 September.