Truss to reset premiership as parliament returns from conference recess
Liz Truss will hope to reset her premiership as parliament returns today, after warning her MPs that the Tories face electoral wipeout unless they row in behind her.
The Prime Minister is reportedly planning to bring forward more supply-side reforms this week in a bid to grasp the agenda and provide more clarity around her economic plan.
It is rumoured this will include long-awaited changes to EU financial services regulation and new laws to clamp down on striking workers.
MPs return to Westminster after the party conference season recess, with Labour consistently holding 25+ point leads in opinion polls.
Number 10 and several cabinet ministers yesterday came out to warn rebel MPs about Tory disunity, after a party conference marked by vicious infighting and attacks on Truss.
A Number 10 source told The Telegraph that Tory backbenchers need to “get behind Liz or get the monstrous coalition of Labour and the SNP”.
Former cabinet ministers Michael Gove and Grant Shapps spent parts of the four-day conference in Birmingham undermining Truss’ leadership, with the pair helping force a U-turn on the government’s plan to cut the top rate of Income Tax.
Shapps is openly plotting against Truss and has a spreadsheet of how many Tory MPs are unsatisfied with the Prime Minister, according to The Times.
There was also a complete breakdown in cabinet discipline during party conference as two members of her top team hit out against the U-turn on cutting tax for the UK’s highest earners, while a further two freestyled on benefits policy.
Suella Braverman – who publicly denounced Truss’ tax U-turn – warned against “splits and fallouts” yesterday.
“Those working with Labour to undermine our prime minister are putting the Conservatives’ chance of victory at the next election in real danger,” she wrote in The Sun.
Close Boris Johnson ally Nadine Dorries has become increasingly critical of Truss’ premiership and has said she does not have a mandate to move toward smale-state, libertarian policies.
She told the BBC yesterday: “I am still one of Liz’s biggest supporters, but you have to put that into context… that we are 30 points behind Labour in the polls.
“And if there was a general election tomorrow that would probably mean complete wipeout for the Conservative party.”