Truss to face Commons in fresh leadership test

Liz Truss will face a critical test of her premiership on Wednesday when she faces the House of Commons for the first time since her economic platform was ripped up.

The UK prime minister will make her first appearance in parliament after Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor that many MPs believe is now the country’s de facto leader, reversed nearly all the measures in her disastrous “mini” Budget.

Anger over Truss’s leadership abated on Tuesday, with government insiders saying the mood in Downing Street was “calmer” and “much happier”. The prime minister’s allies believe she can now survive until at least the end of the month.

Senior MPs said Truss should be left in place until after Hunt delivers his new Budget on October 31 to avoid causing further instability. “Imagine if we had a new prime minister who appointed a new chancellor before the end of the month,” one MP said.

One minister added: “let’s see how the markets react then, if they nosedive again then everything will be politically up in the air again.” 

[It’s] no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes, but when she goes.

Despite only five MPs calling on Truss to resign, few Conservatives and ministers believe Truss can survive, despite the prime minister’s insistence that she will fight the next election.

Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, said at a private event on Tuesday that it was “no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes, but when she goes”. In leaked comments to The Guardian newspaper, he said, “the question for any leader is what happens when the programme or the platform on which you secured the leadership has been shredded.”

One former cabinet minister said Truss has “bought a stay of execution, but nothing more. The prime minister is like a piece of paper floating in the wind, she could blow away at any moment.”

Truss met members of the European Research Group of hardline Brexiters on Tuesday evening to persuade right leaning MPs to rally behind her leadership. One MP present said, “the Brexiters are behind her.”

In an effort to improve relations with right leaning Tories, Truss also rehired David Canzini, the Brexit supporting former Boris Johnson aide who is close to the ERG, as an adviser.

The prime minister received a favourable reception from the One Nation group of centrist Tory MPs, who are pleased that Hunt, a former member of the caucus, is effectively running the government and keeping rightwing Tories at bay. One moderate said, “the right don’t have a credible candidate. The nutters don’t have a lead nutter”.

However, Truss’s weak position was highlighted by several new polls on Tuesday. A YouGov survey of Conservative party members found that 55 per cent want the prime minister to resign. The pollster also reported that former chancellor Rishi Sunak would beat her if a Tory leadership contest was held. In a separate poll, YouGov said the prime minister’s net favourability ratings have sunk to -70 points.

One despairing former minister said the party agreed that Truss had to go, but that it was bitterly divided on what should happen next.

“The old guard think that Jeremy Hunt might be prime minister, but that’s a fantasy,” he said. “The right don’t like Rishi [Sunak] but don’t have a candidate of their own — they have screwed their case for lower taxes and a small state for a generation,” he said.

“Penny Mordaunt goes around saying she can jolly things up as if it’s a hockey match. But in the end, the electoral dynamics are so bad: colleagues won’t put up with it.”

But a senior MP said that the situation was “terrible” for the Conservative party whether Truss stayed or went. “Either we look ludicrous to be replacing [the] leader so quickly, or we are heading for a landslide defeat,” he said. “It’s checkmate either way.”

In a sign of growing anger over Conservative economic mismanagement, the Liberal Democrats reported this week that five business figures, including one who had previously donated to the Tories, have agreed to pay the party £50,000 a year to help unseat Tory MPs.

“We have seen a significant change over the past week with a dramatic increase in donors knocking at the door of the Liberal Democrats,” said a party spokeswoman.

“They will not forgive the Conservatives for wrecking the economy and see us as the main party to unseat many of those MPs in their heartlands,” she added. The money will be spent on campaigning in about 30 Lib Dem target seats in the so-called Tory “blue wall” of prosperous southern constituencies.