Little more than a month after assuming the role of British Prime Minister, Liz Truss appears to be in peril as rebellious Tory MPs are plotting to oust her, the Sunday Mirror reported.
The group of MPs purportedly want Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace as their new leader and PM, with Rishi Sunak reinstated as Chancellor. Amid the political and market turmoil sparked by Truss’s fiscal plans that led her to fire her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and reverse major parts of her tax-cutting Growth Plan, some 120 Tories have purportedly already sent in letters of no confidence in Liz Truss to Sir Graham Brady. They want the chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee to convince Truss to “leave quietly” this week, the publication reports.
Ben Wallace, 52, is regarded by the alleged plotters as the sole Cabinet minister capable of taking over as PM, with one source cited as saying:
“Most of us now favour a coronation for Ben. He’s the best we’ve got. But he might need some persuading to take the job.”
As for ex-Chancellor Sunak, the Tory insider added:
“And getting Rishi back would calm the bond markets and strengthen the pound.”
Ahead of the Tory leadership race this summer, Wallace was viewed as an early favorite to succeed Boris Johnson, but he chose not to stand. However, when asked at this month’s Tory conference in Birmingham whether he would consider running for leader, Wallace said: “I don’t rule it out.”
Ever since Truss and Kwarteng unveiled their unfunded tax-slashing mini-budget on 23 September, sending the markets into turmoil with sterling collapsing, the Tories have faced disastrous polls. After the recent government U-turns on the economic package and the sacking of Kwarteng, the numbers have been getting only worse. Based on recent polls, electoral extrapolations would give the Tories just 85 seats compared with Labour’s 471 were there to be a vote now. The emboldened Labour party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, wrote in the Sunday Mirror:
“The quicker this shambolic government is gone, the quicker we can get on with the job of fixing their mess and rebuilding our country.”
Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner added:
“She’s crashed the British economy. Now she’s sacked her Chancellor for implementing her own policies. She’s unfit to be PM and the Tories are unfit to govern.”
Accordingly, there has been growing concern within the Tory party, with senior MPs reportedly planning to meet on Monday to discuss the prime minister’s future. Some want Truss to step down within days, emphasizing that she is now “in office but not in control”.
“She is in the departure lounge now and she knows that... It is a case now of whether she takes part in the process and goes to some extent on her own terms, or whether she tries to resist and is forced out,” a former minister told The Guardian.
According to the outlet, between 15 and 20 former ministers and senior MPs have been invited to a “dinner of grown-ups”, convened by leading Sunak supporters, to plan how to remove Truss.
A vote of no confidence among Conservative lawmakers is one way to remove the party leader, but at present 1922 Committee rules say that such a vote cannot be held until September 2023 as a new leader gets a year's "grace period" before he or she can be “challenged”.
However, the committee, which sets the rules for selecting and changing a leader, could remove this restriction if there was sufficient pressure from within the party. At the moment the rules state that 15 percent of the Conservative Party's 356 lawmakers would have to write a letter to the Chairman of the 1922 committee requesting a confidence vote.
This comes as Sir Graham Brady is due to form a new 1922 executive on 18 October. Former vice-chairwoman Nusrat Ghani left after being appointed Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy by Truss.
One route reportedly being considered by rebels is to increase the number of MP nominations a contender requires from 20 to more than 50 percent of the 356-strong Parliamentary party. This could ensure there is only one name on the final ballot.
“Members will be furious not to get a vote and they’ll go on strike. That means no one to canvass or deliver leaflets. But it’s the least worst option,” an MP was cited as saying by the Sunday Mirror.
MPs have also ostensibly speculated that getting former leadership rivals Sunak and Penny Mordaunt on a joint ticket could get past the 100-vote threshold.
Truss’s premiership “hangs by a thread," according to former Tory leader William, Lord Hague, and former Treasury minister David Mellor suggested that she is “undoubtedly toast”.
A source familiar with the rebel MPs' conversations told the Sunday Mirror:
“They are just going to have to sit down and work things out. It now becomes a rescue mission for the Conservative party and the economy. That’s where we are.”