The Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker is leaving the newspaper to run the Wall Street Journal, amid plans to make the weekend title work more closely with the Times.

Rupert Murdoch’s News UK has already started combining some sections of the Times and the Sunday Times to create a seven-day operation, after convincing the government to remove all legal barriers to a merger. For now they remain separate outlets, with the company pledging to “retain their unique identities, sharing resources where it makes sense to do so”.

Tucker’s move to the Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch-owned newspaper, may make this process simpler. Journalists at the Sunday Times say she did not always have the warmest of relationships with Tony Gallagher, the editor of the Times, which could cause difficulties while plotting a joint future for the two UK titles.

Staff expect Tucker will be replaced by her deputy editor, Ben Taylor, a former Daily Mail executive who is an ex-colleague of Gallagher. There is also continued speculation that Keith Poole, the British editor of the New York Post, could join Murdoch’s UK outlets in some capacity.

Tucker was seen as comparatively more liberal than previous editors of the Sunday Times, pushing stories on social issues that may have been ignored under her predecessors. She may find this approach more challenging at the Wall Street Journal, a more conservative outlet where she will be in charge of its news coverage in the run-up to the next presidential election.

Although the Journal has a more distinct split between its news and opinion sections than British newspapers, Tucker will find herself having to work out how to cover a third presidential run by Donald Trump. Murdoch has already indicated how he has cooled on the former president and is warming to Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who is expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination.