‘It can’t go on like this’ – it looks to be over for PM Truss | Beth Rigby

Published

2 years ago

October 17, 2022

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It looks to be over.

Jeremy Hunt’s decision to not just junk most of Liz Truss’s tax-cutting plan but go further and ditch much of her flagship energy policy signalled the end of not only “Trussonomics”, but potentially the prime minister herself.

When the end comes is unclear: Ms Truss may have been bought some time by the fact the markets settled after the new chancellor threw her plans on the bonfire.

Hunt goes further than expected – as Tory MPs say it’s ‘when not if’ Truss goes – follow latest on politics

But with her policies demolished and her first choice of chancellor sacked, there’s no firewall left now between the PM and her fuming parliamentary party.

What’s more, the public appear to have made up their minds – Liz Truss has the worst ratings of any prime minister ever, according to polling last week.

She has reached, say many, a point of no return. From cabinet ministers to MPs, the mutterings are ominous: “It can’t go on like this,” one senior figure told me.

And an increasing number of Conservative MPs are willing to make this view public. Five MPs have now called on Ms Truss to resign.

‘I’ve just had enough – I don’t think her position is tenable’

In an interview with me earlier today, Sir Charles Walker told me he didn’t think her position was recoverable, as he laid bare some of the anguish that MPs are privately feeling behind closed doors.

“The PM has had a very torrid six weeks. Personally, I don’t think her position is tenable. She would take a different view. But if you read the mood of the parliamentary party, she has lost authority,” he said.

“You can’t lead the party if you don’t have some authority,” the former member of the 1922 executive committee told me.

He also said that the party had been “so catastrophically incompetent”, it was difficult to see the party winning an election.

“I’m just so cross. I’ve just had enough. I think quite a few of my colleagues have had enough. I’ll be dismissed as tired and emotional. Yes, I am tired and emotional. And I am angry. And I’m in the same place as many friends, family, and constituents.”

As for the future of Ms Truss, Sir Charles said the PM would either have to stand down or be forced out, as he predicted there would be a new prime minister by November.

“I think it’s her decision right now. I think if she doesn’t go right now, it will not be her decision. That agency will be taken away from her.”

When I asked Mr Walker how long he thought she had got, he said simply: “A week or two.”

So we move from a question of can she survive to what comes next. A group of former cabinet ministers, now senior backbenchers, are in discussions as to how they might end the Truss regime and what might follow.

“The country is in serious trouble, and we have to get a grip of this,” says one former cabinet minister familiar with the discussions.

Hunt, Sunak or Johnson for PM?

Some of the protagonists are plain to see and have been publicly agitating: Treasury select committee chairman, Mel Stride; former cabinet ministers Michael Gove, Grant Shapps, Julian Smith and Mark Harper, but there are plenty more operating in the shadows.

But the divisions that have riven this party remain, and MPs are already split over who should replace Liz Truss.

Two senior party figures tell me one option is to put Jeremy Hunt into the hot seat, but a Rishi Sunak supporter tells me that the role has to go to the runner-up in this summer’s leadership election, who won the support of 137 MPs in the final parliamentary ballot.

Another Sunak supporter points out that it is “Rishi’s policies that are now being implemented by a PM who disavowed them. It is entirely unprecedented”.

But for those in the party – MPs and party members – who backed Boris Johnson, Mr Sunak is an anathema.

“I just don’t think it would work,” says one senior Johnson ally.

“He brought down Boris Johnson who had an elected mandate, I don’t think people will accept him.”

Instead, these key Johnson supporters want the return of the former PM.

Nadine Dorries went on Twitter on Monday to say the only option is to stick with Liz Truss or bring back the man with the mandate, Boris Johnson.

This is a view shared by others in the party. As another Johnson supporter put it to me: “He’s the one who won the mandate and he’s the only credible option if we want to avoid having a general election in the spring.”

For his part, I hear the former PM is still pretty angry about the way he was brought down, but it is worth remembering there remains a huge chunk of the parliamentary party that would find it near impossible to accept this return.

Ms Truss supporters hope that these divisions at least help buy her time. As one cabinet minister told me today: “The appointment of Jeremy Hunt buys her some space.”

Another told me that the emergency statement and “more settled markets have helped calm nerves”.

And Ms Truss will try to fight back. As she tries to shore up support and sell her U-turn, meetings are being held with parliamentary colleagues, from the One Nation Conservative caucus tonight, to the European Research Group, which represents her main base in the parliamentary party, tomorrow.

How could Liz Truss be removed from office?

But the PM and her team will know there are various ways that she could be removed from office.

Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee, could visit the prime minister and tell her she no longer commands the support of the parliamentary party. The question is where does he set that threshold?

Confidence votes are typically triggered when 15% of MPs write letters to Sir Graham expressing a view that they want the leader gone, but the new prime minister is protected from a confidence vote for a year.

If enough letters go in, however, that could change. MPs have suggested to me that if 100 or more were submitted, Sir Graham Brady might feel compelled to tap Ms Truss on the shoulder.

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And if she won’t go, the party could change the rules.

Under those scenarios, the prime minister either agrees to stand down – as happened with Theresa May – or is forced out by the parliamentary party under changed rules.

In practice, as Mr Johnson himself put it as he stood down as PM, “once the herd moves, it moves” – if enough MPs and members of government withdraw support, a prime minister simply cannot stay on.

There are no good options for Liz Truss or her party. MPs can sit on their hands and let Jeremy Hunt act as de facto prime minister, or force her out with all the difficulty that entails around succession and the public mandate.

But what is clear now is that the Truss premiership failed, and she cannot lead the Tories into the next general election.

We wait for the herd to move.

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

44 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

44 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.

UK

Wes Streeting ‘crossed the line’ by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Published

44 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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Wes Streeting 'crossed the line' by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Wes Streeting “crossed the line” by opposing assisted dying in public and the argument shouldn’t “come down to resources”, a Labour peer has said.

Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harriet Harman criticised the health secretary for revealing how he is going to vote on the matter when it comes before parliament later this month.

MPs are being given a free vote, meaning they can side with their conscience and not party lines, so the government is supposed to be staying neutral.

But Mr Streeting has made clear he will vote against legalising assisted dying, citing concerns end-of-life care is not good enough for people to make an informed choice, and that some could feel pressured into the decision to save the NHS money.

He has also ordered a review into the potential costs of changing the law, warning it could come at the expense of other NHS services if implemented.

Baroness Harman said Mr Streeting has “crossed the line in two ways”.

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“He should not have said how he was going to vote, because that breaches neutrality and sends a signal,” she said.

“And secondly… he’s said the problem is that it will cost money to bring in an assisted dying measure, and therefore he will have to cut other services.

“But paradoxically, he also said it would be a slippery slope because people will be forced to bring about their own death in order to save the NHS money. Well, it can’t be doing both things.

“It can’t be both costing the NHS money and saving the NHS money.”

Baroness Harman said the argument “should not come down to resources” as it is a “huge moral issue” affecting “only a tiny number of people”.

She added that people should not mistake Mr Streeting for being “a kind of proxy for Keir Starmer”.

“The government is genuinely neutral and all of those backbenchers, they can vote whichever way they want,” she added.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously expressed support for assisted dying, but it is not clear how he intends to vote on the issue or if he will make his decision public ahead of time.

The cabinet has varying views on the topic, with the likes of Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood siding with Mr Streeting in her opposition but Energy Secretary Ed Miliband being for it.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being championed by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater, who wants to give people with six months left to live the choice to end their lives.

Under her proposals, two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and a High Court judge must give their approval.

The bill will also include punishments of up to 14 years in prison for those who break the law, including coercing someone into ending their own life.

MPs will debate and vote on the legislation on 29 November, in what will be the first Commons vote on assisted dying since 2015, when the proposal was defeated.