Britain: Calls are growing louder for Liz Truss to resign or be replaced, after weeks of economic and political tumult over her now largely abandoned tax-slashing economic package.
When Truss was running for Britain’s Prime Minister’s polls, an ally predicted her initial few weeks in office would be turbulent.
But very few could have anticipated the scale of outburst and fury – least of Truss herself. In just six weeks the Prime Minister faces the worst for her liberal economic policies that have triggered a fierce financial crisis, the central bank’s emergency intervention, multiple U-turns and the firing of her Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng,38 days after his appointment.
Rebellion against Truss within the Party
Now Truss faces a rebellion inside the governing Conservative Party that leaves her leadership hanging by a thread.
At least four MPs from Truss’s Conservative party have publicly urged her to quit in the aftermath of the dramatic U-turns on her economic agenda in recent days.
Many rationalists are arguing that her tenure, just six weeks old, is effectively finished.
Following the decision last Friday to sack her finance minister and replace him with previous leadership rival Jeremy Hunt, Truss could not have exposed her vulnerability better and her credibility has been so undermined that she must stand down. Let her remain as Prime Minister until a successor was decided. -This is the general opinion of the majority of the Conservatives.
Conservative lawmaker Robert Halfon fumed on Sunday that the last few weeks had brought “one horror story after another.”
“The government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra, ultra free-market experiments,” he told Sky News.
The conservatives cannot feign ignorance of the fact that Truss during her various election campaign had openly declared to challenge the economic ‘orthodoxy’ and had promised to cut taxes, slash red tape and would spur Britain’s sluggish economy to grow.
But, her rival, former Treasury Chief Rishi Sunak, argued that immediate tax cuts would be reckless amid the economic shockwaves from the coronavirus epidemic and the war in Ukraine.
Jeremy Hunt scraps all financial policy decisions taken by Truss a month back
Meanwhile, the UK’s new Treasury Chief Jeremy Hunt tore apart the government’s economic plan yesterday, dramatically reversing most of the tax cuts and spending plans that the embattled PM Truss announced less than a month ago. However, the move instead of establishing reassurance raises uncertainty over the continuance of the beleaguered Prime Minister in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit.
Hunt announced that was scrapping “almost all” of Truss’ tax cuts, along with her flagship energy policy and her promise – that there will be no public spending cuts.
PM Liz Truss on the backfoot
The reversal of policies at the first instance calmed the turbulent financial markets and restored the government’s credibility to some extent; however it undermined the Prime Minister’s rapidly declining authority and fuelled more rebellion that would step up calls for her ouster.
However, Hunt seems going all out setting Britain’s fiscal policies with Torries moving against Truss.
That could mean another Tory leadership contest, less than two months after the last one formally concluded.
Theresa May replaced ex-premier David Cameron in 2016 – amid the fallout from the Brexit referendum – after all the other contenders eventually withdrew.
No-confidence vote
- Tory MPs could try to force Truss out of office – but it would require a unified effort by the party’s ever-fractious 357 House of Commons lawmakers.
- Conservative party rules prevent a new leader from facing a vote of no-confidence by their colleagues in their first year because only one contest can be held in any 12 months.
- Besides, it normally requires 15 per cent of the parliamentary party – currently 54 MPs – to back a leadership election.
However, the powerful 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, which sets the party’s internal rules, could move to change them to allow for a no-confidence vote against Truss.
In that scenario, it is unclear what threshold would be set to trigger a ballot.
At the moment nothing augurs well for Liz Truss.
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