TORIES IN TURMOIL AS LIZ TRUSS FORCED TO RESIGN, BORIS JOHNSON PLOTS DOWNING STREET RETURN
By SHAMLAL PURI
Associate Publisher & Senior Editor – UK
Worth Noting:
- The Prime Minister, who just hours earlier, was angrily telling the House of Commons amid taunts from the opposition Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starner “I am a fighter and not a quitter”, finally laid down her arms and surrendered to damaging criticism and after senior Tory MPs publicly asked her to go.
- Political knives were already out for Truss after Kwarteng was sacked as she fought to salvage her wobbly Government, but her political authority had evaporated.
- She had lost the confidence of most of her Party’s MPs, asked her to quit. One MP said she was in the office but not in power.
- In her 200-word statement, Truss said she came into office during great economic and international instability.
Liz Truss stepped out of the front door of 10 Downing Street on a light drizzly, gloomy overcast afternoon on Tuesday and walked up to the specially erected dais as the autumn brown tree leaves covered the entrance to announce that she had resigned as her failed Government had hit the buffers with high inflation and weak growth.
She is the shortest-serving Prime Minister in modern history who held power for just 44 days.
The only UK prime minister with a short span of leadership lasting less than 130 days was George Canning almost two centuries ago – in 1827, when his time in office, from 12 April to 8 August, was tragically cut short by a fatal illness.
Truss was elected PM on 5 September and was appointed the following day after defeating the earlier front-runner Rishi Sunak.
Former ousted Prime Minister Boris Johnson, true to his parting words, “I will be back”, is plotting to return to Downing Street to fend off leadership attempts from Rishi Sunak. Investors and markets are alarmed over Boris bouncing back to power.
Sunak appears to show promise this time around, but the stakes could easily change.
Truss’s time in power was rocked by political and economic turmoil. Her Government was on the ropes for weeks. Her undoing was the 23 September minibudget that she and her former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, had presented.
It spooked the markets and sent the Pound Sterling into free fall until the Bank of England stepped in to prop up the currency and the pension basket with £65 billion in taxpayers’ money.
Truss’s politics turned out to be a trial-and-error gamble.
Kwarteng was sacked last Friday, October 14, as Truss sought to shift the blame on her finance minister.
The Prime Minister, who just hours earlier, was angrily telling the House of Commons amid taunts from the opposition Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starner “I am a fighter and not a quitter”, finally laid down her arms and surrendered to damaging criticism and after senior Tory MPs publicly asked her to go.
Political knives were already out for Truss after Kwarteng was sacked as she fought to salvage her wobbly Government, but her political authority had evaporated.
She had lost the confidence of most of her Party’s MPs, asked her to quit. One MP said she was in the office but not in power.
In her 200-word statement, Truss said she came into office during great economic and international instability.
“Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their bills,” she said, adding, “Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine threatens the security of our whole continent. And our country had been held back for too long by low economic growth.”
“I was elected by the Conservative Party with a mandate to change this. We delivered on energy bills and on cutting national insurance. And we set out a vision for a low tax, high growth economy – that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.”
After claiming credit for what her Government had done in 44 days, Truss came to the crux of her speech, “I recognise though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
“I have therefore spoken to His Majesty The King to notify him that I am resigning as Leader of the Conservative Party. This morning I met the Chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.”
They have agreed there will be a leadership election to be completed in the next week. “This will ensure we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.”
“I will remain Prime Minister until a successor has been chosen.”
Liz Truss stands to get £115,000 annual allowance for ex-Prime Ministers – not bad for 44 days of work. Her critics and friends are asking her to turn down this allowance as that would add more points to her political credibility.
With Truss out, the search has started for the UK’s third Prime Minister in one year, again from the ruling Tory party. The new leader will be in place by next Friday, 28 October.
There was an immediate demand from the opposition Labour Party Sir Kier Starmer, to end this political shamble and call a general election.
The Tories are scared of an election knowing their popularity has hit rock bottom and they will lose in the polls. But this demand is gaining pace as some million grassroots-level Britons are asking for the UK to go to the country instead of making the ‘selection’ of Truss’s successor a Tory Party affair. The next election is not due until 17 December 2024.
Opposition parties have warned that Tories should stop treating the country as their fiefdom. They should let the people decide who they want to be in power through the ballot box.
Signs of serious cracks in the Truss Government were visible hours before her resignation. Her Government was rocked with a spate of resignations and chaos in the House of Commons.
In a bid to prove that she was in control of the Government, Tory MPs, some waverers were forcibly marched to vote on a crunch Commons vote on the future of fracking to prospect for shale gas in what protesters and opposition parties say could seriously damage local communities.
Party discipline is one thing but forcing someone to vote against their conscience is another. This can happen in fascist countries labelling themselves as democracies. But what happened in the Commons was turbulent as some reluctant Tory MPs were reportedly physically pulled and manhandled by ministers into the voting lobby.
Though the government won the motion over 40 Tory MPs did not support the Truss government on this.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who had barely been in office for 43 days, was forced to resign in a separate matter for breach of ministerial code.
She had made the grave error of sending an official document to a parliamentary colleague connected with her work through her private email, which is prohibited.
Suella’s resignation came at an inopportune moment for Truss as she continued to fight her critics demanding her resignation. Truss immediately appointed Grant Shapps Home Secretary.
But Suella fired a bruising parting shot in her resignation letter by slamming Truss over her failures on Home Office matters.
“I have serious concerns about the direction of this Government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have a serious concern about this Government’s commitment to honouring manifesto commitments, such as reducing overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration, particularly the dangerous small boat crossings.”
Truss repeatedly apologised in the House of Commons for the unacceptable mistakes during her leadership and the minibudget that cost the country billions which could have been utilised to boost the ailing NHS in the UK and help relieve the cost of living and energy crisis.
Still, her apologies failed to convince her Party members, who believed she had become more of a liability than an asset to the Party.
The writing was on the wall for Truss’s resignation; it was only a question of how much more flak she could take from her own Party.
To survive in politics, you need to have the thick skin of a crocodile, the sharp teeth of a lion or a wolf to bite back and the aggression of a grizzly bear. This place is not for softies.
With Truss out of the scene, it is action replay time, with hundreds of thousands of Pounds being sunk into a new leadership challenge.
Several Tory Party hopefuls are hovering around Downing Street.
One of the most surprising possible contenders is none other than Boris Johnson, who on being urged to return to Downing Street, accepted the challenge on Friday. They believe he has the magic wand to earn the Tories the re-entry card into the public’s popularity stakes. Boris who was holidaying in the Caribbean hurriedly cut short his trip to return to London.
“Really?” asks traditional London Labour voter Pakistani diasporan Imtiaz, “I can’t believe UK politics anymore. They are shockingly getting as bad as the countries back home.”
It is a well-known fact that Boris was ‘convicted’ and fined for the party-gate scam, which he first denied but had to buckle down and admit he had made a mistake. He is still under investigation, He had earned a reputation for telling lies to save face.
Observers say that in the rule book, someone with a ‘conviction’ is not eligible to be a candidate for the high office.
But if the powers have changed the rule book, can Boris bounce back and be catapulted into Downing Street? Each candidate has to win 100 supporters out of 367 to enter the contest.
The moot question remains: if Boris had to stay in Downing Street, why was he booted out in the first place? The Government could have saved a packet with that leadership six-week election façade which brought Truss into power.
The thought that goes through the minds of political watchers is: Was Truss a plant to hold the fort for Boris while the country gets a cooling-off period from the anti-Boris media frenzy?
Many Britons, including many Tories, do not view Boris Johnson in a good light. Boris supporter Nadine Dorries, a former cabinet minister in his cabinet, says she will support his candidature despite the circumstances in which he was forced to quit.
Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, who was nearly going to add his name to the Prime Minister hopefuls for the second time, appears to be leaning towards a Boris return.
Other names for the leadership being mentioned are the indomitable millionaire Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. He refused to give up his stake in the leadership gamble and are throwing his name again into the hat.
His plus point is that he is vindicated in his assertions that Truss was offering fairy-tale economics with her promises of tax cuts without funds to pay for them.
This has pushed Sunak up the popularity stakes with fellow party members.
Boris’s dislike for Rishi Sunak is well documented. He is also remembered for losing the Treasury some £8 billion in an investment that went pear shaped. His minus point is that the Boris Government fell due to his resignation.
Amazingly there are calls for Rishi Sunak to serve as Boris Johnson’s Home Secretary! This appears to be a racist jibe because the last two home secretaries – Priti Patel and Suella Braverman were non-white Cabinet ministers. Sunak is more qualified as Mr Money than Mr Immigration and Policing expert.
This opens the race card, which diaspora Britons recall with horror that many or partly led to the Sunak losing the first round of leadership selections. If the white Britons have learned their lesson from putting Truss in power, Sunak has a significant chance of being the first Indian-origin British prime Minister. But critics think that white Britons’ in-born racism biases will not die a sudden death. There should be tolerance power which is missing.
In a way, Asian diasporas in the UK are more typecast as pharmacists, accountants, IT engineers, investment bankers, and businesspersons than top leaders. Are white Britons ready to give that Barack Obama moment to Rishi Sunak?
Suella Braverman, of Indian descent, resigned just before Truss’s fall and is believed to be adding her name to the leadership contest but her name failed to show on the list of hopefuls.
Another Prime Minister possibility is Penny Mordaunt, who lost in the first round.
Analysts are suggesting a Mordaunt – Sunak partnership could work well. Mordaunt could be the Prime Minister if racial bias is the cause to stop a diaspora challenge, and Sunak the Chancellor with the added icing on the cake of Deputy Prime Minister.
There is no doubt that, once again, the dirty tricks department will stay open on all sides until Monday, when the new Prime Minister takes office.
The argument for a general election continues, but if the Tories insist on selecting their Prime Minister as before, it’s their time and call.
May the best candidate win!