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For a party that has developed a reputation for regicide over the past few years, Conservative MPs still have a habit of delaying the inevitable. Theresa May limped on for nearly two years after her authority was destroyed by the loss of the Tory majority. There was a slow ebbing of power – and various failed plots – before she was eventually forced to say she’d go. Boris Johnson was pushed out months after the Partygate scandal first broke. MPs kept stepping back from their anonymous threats to the point that Johnson’s team began to believe it was all a bluff. It was only after a scandal involving the deputy chief whip that they went in for the kill.
But with Liz Truss, could the party be about to buck the trend and opt for a swift finish? A combination of dismal polling, economic uncertainty and Labour’s call for a general election is leading to increased talk among MPs that matters must come to a head sooner rather than later. When might they try to force her out? “It feels like this week or next; MPs are struggling to find a reason as to why she should stay,” claims a former minister. “I think it will be imminent,” adds a senior backbencher. “But that may be my hope rather than the reality.”
Until last week, there was a sense among MPs that Truss still had time left to try to steady the ship. Most in the party were – and many still are – horrified by the idea of ousting a leader after just six weeks in the job. The next flashpoint was viewed as the Halloween fiscal event, when the government would attempt to fix the damage from the not-so-mini budget and reassure the markets that they had a plan to balance the books after all.
But Truss’s decision on Friday to sack her close political ally and chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, as well as a U-turn on the campaign pledge to halt the corporation tax hike, has led to a change in mood. OBR forecasts, seen by the government, that predict a black hole in the public finances as a result of the mini-budget focused minds in No 10.
