Three Tory MPs have today broken rank and publicly urged under-fire Prime Minister Liz Truss to resign – less than two months into her premiership.
Andrew Bridgen and Jamie Wallis today became the latest Conservative backbenchers to go public with their calls for the embattled Tory leader to go.
It comes after ex-minister Crispin Blunt today told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show that he does not think the Prime Minister can survive the current crisis.
Mr Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicester, who supported Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign, today made clear his stance.
After savaging Ms Truss in a blog post, he told The Daily Telegraph: ‘We cannot carry on like this. Our country, its people and our party deserve better.’
This evening, Jamie Wallis took to Twitter to share a letter sent to the Prime Minister, with the post: ‘In recent weeks, I have watched as the Government has undermined Britain’s economic credibility & fractured our Party irreparably.
‘Enough is enough. I have written to the Prime Minister to ask her to stand down as she no longer holds the confidence of this country.’
While many Tories have said that the PM is on her way out behind the scenes he is the first to publicly say her days are numbered, despite axing chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in a bit to keep hold of power.
It comes as the Archbishop of Canterbury became the latest critic of her mini-Budget.
Speaking on a tour of Australia Justin Welby said plans to cut taxes for the rich and rely on trickle down economics were ‘immoral’.
Andrew Bridgen (pictured) and Jamie Wallis today became the latest Conservative backbenchers to go public with their calls for the embattled Tory leader to go
This evening, Jamie Wallis (pictured) took to Twitter to share a letter sent to the Prime Minister, with the post: ‘In recent weeks, I have watched as the Government has undermined Britain’s economic credibility & fractured our Party irreparably.’
Former minister Crispin Blunt told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show that he does not think the Prime Minister can survive the current crisis.
The intervention by the Reigate MP – who is himself quitting the Commons at the next election – came as the Archbishop of Canterbury became the latest critic of her mini-Budget.
Speaking on a tour of Australia Justin Welby said plans to cut taxes for the rich and rely on trickle down economics were ‘immoral’.
Meanwhile, Mr Blunt – who is quitting the Commons at the next election – told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show that he does not think the Prime Minister can survive the current crisis.
‘I think the game is up and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed,’ he said.
Asked how the party will get rid of her, he said: ‘If there is such a weight of opinion in the parliamentary party that we have to have a change, then it will be effected.
‘Exactly how it is done and exactly under what mechanism… but it will happen.’
Mr Welby clashed with the Government of previous PM Boris Johnson on a range of issues and he again spoke out while Down Under.
He told the Guardian he could see no ‘moral case’ for a budget that disproportionately hit the poorest, adding: ‘I’m not going to make a party political point because both parties are deeply divided and I’m not going to talk about Australia because I just don’t know the situation. But in the UK, the priority is the cost of living, with the poorest.
‘And from an economics point of view, I’m deeply sceptical about trickle-down theory.
‘You know, if you cut money for the rich, ever since Keynes wrote his general theory in 1936, whenever it was, he showed very clearly that the rich save if they’ve got enough to live on.
‘So if you want to generate spending in the economy, you put more money into the hands of those who need the money to buy food, to buy goods, to buy basic necessities.’
It came as new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt insisted Liz Truss remains ‘in charge’ of the Government today as he prepared to meet the Prime Minister hours after binning her new economic plan.
The new Chancellor will hold a summit with the PM at her Chequers country retreat after denying he was leading a ‘silent coup’ and warning of major public spending cuts and tax rises to come.
Amid claims that Tories are still plotting to replace the Prime Minister, Mr Hunt is expected to follow up her Friday climbdown on increasing Corporation Tax by axing the mini-Budget’s plan to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p to 19p.
Within a day of taking the keys to No11 the new chancellor’s actions – not denied in a media round today – mean none of the three main strands of the ‘Trussonomics’ package from just three weeks ago remains.
As well as Friday’s Corporation tax reversal – it will now rise from 19 per cent to 25 per cent – the decision to axe the 45p income tax rate for the highest earners was embarrassingly reversed during the Conservative Party Conference.
There are also suggestions that he may also renege on plans to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP.
Appearing on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Hunt said he wants to keep as many of Liz Truss’s tax cuts as he can but all options remain open.
Telling Sunday with Luara Kuenssberg that ‘the Prime Minister’s in charge’, he said: ‘We’re going to have to take some very difficult decisions both on spending and on tax. Spending is not going to increase by as much as people hoped … taxes are not going to go down as quickly as people thought and some taxes are going to go up,’ he said.
And he also said no Government department would be immune from ‘efficiency savings’, as he signalled spending cuts to come.
Asked if it was a return to the austerity brought in by the 2010 coalition, he said: ‘I don’t think we are going to have anything like that this time.’