- Tuesday, April 30, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Trouble was snowballing in Britain’s politics and it could lead to yet another prime minister losing office prematurely. If a report in the UK media is to be believed, prime minister Liz Truss might face an ouster by October 24 as nearly 100 members of parliament of the ruling Conservative Party are set to submit letters of no-confidence in the embattled prime minister to Graham Brady, the chief of the party’s committee that looks after the leadership contest.
Truss became the prime minister on September 6 after a weeks-long contest with former chancellor Rishi Sunak to replace Boris Johnson who stepped down in July after his government imploded. But Truss has been facing stiff challenges right from the beginning, especially on the economic front and last week, she even replaced her short-serving chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng with Jeremy Hunt.
An under-pressure Truss even made a major U-turn from her central stance of tax cuts earlier this month while withdrawing a policy to abolish top rates for the richest. A market turmoil followed, adding fuel to her critics within the party.
Truss is the fourth prime minister to lead Britain since it voted to exit the European Union in 2016.
A report in British media also said that the MPs will urge the panel head to tell Truss that her ‘time is up’ or she would be asked to change rules to allow a vote of confidence in her leadership immediately.
Brady is reportedly resisting the prime minister’s ouster and has said that she, along with the newly appointed finance minister, deserve an opportunity to set out an economic strategy in a budget on October 31, the report added.
However, there are also leaders and ministers who are opposed to the idea of removing Truss. Foreign secretary James Cleverly, for instance, feels that a change of guard would be a “disastrously bad idea”.
“I think that changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but also economically, and we are absolutely going to stay focused on growing the economy,” Cleverly was quoted as saying over the idea of sacking Truss.
