Liz Truss will try on Wednesday to rally Conservative MPs behind her wavering leadership at a party conference marred by acrimony, cabinet infighting and confusion.
Truss, who has been prime minister for less than a month, will call on her party in a brief 30-minute speech to rally behind her tax-cutting economic policy, which spooked markets and sent the Tories’ ratings plummeting.
“We cannot have any more diversion and delay at this vital time,” she will tell party members in Birmingham, insisting her debt-funded tax cuts will help Britain “break out of this cycle of high taxes and low growth “.
Truss may have hoped the conference would be a coronation after her election as Tory leader on 5 September; instead, she is struggling to rein in her party after days of political chaos.
The Prime Minister was forced on Monday to scrap a plan to scrap the top 45p tax rate by rebel Tory MPs, prompting Home Secretary Suella Braverman to accuse her colleagues of staging a “coup”.
Cammy Badenoch, the commerce secretary, in turn accused Braverman of using “inflammatory language”; throughout the day on Tuesday there were signs of a breakdown in party discipline.
A fresh Tory rebellion erupted after Truss refused to commit to increasing benefits in line with inflation next year, reversing a promise previously made by her predecessor Boris Johnson.
The Prime Minister is considering increasing benefits in line with growth in average incomes rather than inflation, saving billions of pounds for the Exchequer.
Average earnings growth, including bonuses, was 5.5 percent between May and July, according to the latest official data, while inflation was almost twice as high at around 10 percent.
In a breach of collective responsibility, Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons, told Times Radio: “I’ve always been in favor – whether it’s pensions, whether it’s our welfare system – keeping pace with inflation.”
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Trot is set to fund around £43bn of tax cuts, after around £2bn was cut from the original bill following the U-turn on cutting the top tax rate. But even right-wing supporters – including former Brexit minister Lord David Frost – urged her not to try to balance the books by reducing the real incomes of Britain’s poor.
Thorsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, tweeted: “Two things are pretty clear – the government wants to cut benefits to help fill [a] big fiscal hole and can’t win any votes to do it.
There was also confusion over the timing of the publication of the government’s debt reduction plan, which will be set out alongside official forecasts, with Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng saying November 23 remained the planned date.
But his allies have confirmed a report in the Financial Times that he wants to introduce it later this month. “It will be done by November 23rd,” said one. “If we can bring it forward, we’ll try to do it.”
Treasury insiders said the date change must first be notified to Parliament, which does not return until October 11.
Kwarteng’s “mini-budget”, which also removed the cap on bankers’ bonuses, appears to have been badly received in many of the working-class seats won by the Conservatives under Johnson in 2019.
A survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies in the “red wall” seats of northern England and the Midlands gave Labor a 38-point lead over the Conservatives, up from 15 two weeks ago.
A survey by JLPartnersPolls asked the public what words they associate with the prime minister; the most common being ‘incompetent’, closely followed by ‘useless’ and ‘unreliable’.
Grant Shapps, a former transport secretary, told The News Agents podcast that it was possible the Conservatives would change leader again if Truss “does badly”.
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