Weakened British PM Truss to try to convince Tories she can still deliver
Liz Truss will try to get her beleaguered UK premiership back on track on Wednesday, after a bruising few days that exposed deep divisions in her ruling Conservative Party and left even members of her top team in open disagreement about what to do next.
Truss is struggling to keep control less than a month into her tenure, already forced into a humiliating U-turn over her plan to cut income tax for Britain’s highest earners, which spooked financial markets and hammered support for the Tories in opinion polls. Yet on Tuesday, tensions were still simmering and two members of her Cabinet expressed disappointment that she had backed down.
“Whenever there is change, there is disruption,” Truss will tell the gathering in Birmingham, according to her office. “Not everyone will be in favor. But everyone will benefit from the result, a growing economy and a better future. That is what we have a clear plan to deliver.”
That “clear plan” already appears in doubt. Truss has built her political brand around clarity, decisiveness and a commitment to transforming the UK economy with a massive dose of deregulation and tax cuts. Allies say she has a sense of purpose that was lacking in government under her predecessor Boris Johnson.
But having such a symbolic part of her plan fall at the first hurdle, the clarity has already blurred. MPs are no longer certain she has the mettle to defend what she stands for, and the prospect of U-turns, which cost Johnson so much momentum, has re-emerged.
As another major fight looms over whether to raise welfare payments in line with inflation, Truss has refused to commit to it, her critics have become emboldened to rebel and made it harder for her to get things done.
“Liz Truss was seen as strong and decisive and willing to make unpopular decisions, and voters do respect that kind of thing,” said Chris Curtis, head of political polling at Opinium. “Her mission, from a political strategy point of view, was probably a good plan, trying to create economic growth before the next election and try and take credit for it. But increasingly, that strategy clearly isn’t working as political realities have got in the way.”
At her first session of Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament last month, Truss impressed Tory MPs by giving straight answers, almost unheard of with Johnson. A mini-Budget subsequently unveiled by her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng left the country in no doubt of her tax-cutting, free-market, small-state agenda.
But the unfunded tax cuts sparked a market rout and triggered a backlash from Tory MPs concerned that the government was focusing more on helping the rich than the lowest-paid.
New leaders aren’t supposed to face such heated internal opposition, but that’s what happened in Birmingham as senior Tories including Michael Gove pushed for a reversal to the axing of the top tax rate. Eventually the numbers became too great to resist.