Truss leaves 10 Downing Street. Photo: Rob Pinney/Getty Images
Britain’s escalating political crisis took several unexpected turns on Wednesday when Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned and several senior Conservatives called on Prime Minister Liz Truss to step down. after six disastrous weeks in office.
What they are saying: “This whole thing is inexcusable. It is a sorry reflection on the Conservative parliamentary party at all levels, and it obviously reflects very badly on the government in power,” said Conservative MP Charles Walker. the bbc.
- “All those people who put Liz Truss at number 10 [Downing Street]I hope it was worth… sitting around the Cabinet table. Because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary,” Walker said, adding that Truss would not be able to recover.
- Walker went a step further, accusing “talentless people” of backing Truss to advance their own political careers without considering the national interest.
Driving the news: Walker’s comments came after Truss’s whip boss told Conservative MPs they could be expelled from the party if they refused to vote with the government on fracking, which Truss wants to legalize but many Conservative MPs balk at. oppose.
- The government appeared to back down on that threat when Wednesday’s vote was called, but Conservative whips, tasked with enforcing party discipline, still applied intense pressure to corral MPs in the voting chamber. Forty Conservative MPs ultimately abstained.
- In a chaotic scene inside Parliament, Chief Whip Wendy Morton reportedly she declared that she would resign, prompting Truss to come after her and causing them both to miss the vote.
- As of Wednesday night, Morton and his assistant were still at their jobs, reports the bbc.
brave made give up — officially for violating security protocols by sending a confidential email from a personal account — with a scorching letter implying that Truss herself should be the next to go.
- Braverman hails from the far-right faction of the party that rallied behind Truss in the Conservative leadership race but is now rapidly drifting away from the prime minister as she reshuffles her policies and core team to calm markets and maintain her worked.
- Truss previously removed another arch-conservative, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, after the package of tax cuts they announced three weeks ago spooked markets and triggered a damaging run on the pound.
- Truss has been forced to effectively hand over control of economic policy to Kwarteng’s replacement, Jeremy Hunt, and promptly replaced Braveman with another centrist, Grant Shapps.
State of the situation: Walker is one of the few Conservative MPs now going in the register to say what many say in private, according to British press reports: Truss must go.
- While she apologized for the economic damage her budget called, Truss insisted during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday that she would stay: “I’m a fighter, not one to give up.”
- With polls showing the Conservatives trailing the opposition Labor Party by more than 30 points, MPs are working behind the scenes to find a compromise candidate to replace Truss should they be able to force her out.