This prime minister must be dispatched now
An almost unknown prime minister and her almost unknown chancellor have trashed a golden opportunity to reach out to all sides in their party and consult and reflect during weeks of national mourning - and instead blundered straight into a massively ill-considered move that has almost literally scared the country out of its wits. This prime minister must be dispatched. Sacking her chancellor (though she should) won’t save her now. Her own removal is not a matter of “if” but when, how and by whom.
By whom? That’s entirely in the hands of her own MPs.
They should ask themselves this: do they salvage their honour by moving swiftly to remove the horror their activists’ choice of leader has inflicted on them and their constituents? Or do they hang back, wringing their hands like helpless onlookers, until the inevitable accidents, reverses and obloquy destroy, perhaps for a generation, any Tory claim to responsible government? As a way of saving their seats, how does that sound?
This column argues not just the necessity but the opportunity for Tory MPs to be seen to deal decisively, and at once, with the person their grassroots party forced upon them.
But how? The body through which (at least nominally) they operate is the 1922 Committee of all backbench Conservative MPs. The ’22 makes the rules and the ’22 can change them almost overnight. Water will always find a way to run downhill, so forget anything you may have read about the rules. A vote will happen if the ’22 wants it; the ’22 will want it if backbenchers overwhelmingly demand it; and if a leader expects to lose such a vote, they’ll resign before it happens. As much a threat as a process, the mechanism may never need to be invoked.
A leadership election is, equally, a process that can be used as a threat. In a crisis, and if a particular candidate emerges as the obvious favourite among Tory MPs, other candidates may be prevailed upon to withdraw. This is what happened when Theresa May was declared leader. There was no need to ballot the national membership because only one name remained.
The leader must never again be imposed upon the parliamentary party by the grassroots Tory membership. I think there is now a substantial consensus among Tory MPs (and some support from the grassroots too) for such a proposition. Liz Truss was backed in the first parliamentary ballot by only 50 Tory MPs but because these ballots were designed to produce two names to put before members, there was never a final run-off among MPs between Truss and Rishi Sunak.
It is certain, however, that Sunak would have been overwhelmingly the MPs’ favourite. Given (1) how close the result of the Conservative membership ballot turned out to be, (2) the absence of any indication to activists of how little support Truss truly commanded among her colleagues, and (3) the parade of senior and respected Conservative MPs recommending Truss to the grassroots (because they wanted jobs and misleading polls had predicted a big win for her) . . . given all this, it’s possible Sunak could have won, even among the grassroots.
What has changed since then? Truss and her chancellor have imploded, her MPs have lost whatever faith some had in her, the government and the Bank of England are at war, the economy has moved close to a cliff’s edge, everything now depends on confidence, Sunak has been proved right in all his warnings and the country is now in desperate need of a prime minister and chancellor competent to win back financial trust. This is not the Westminster bubble, it’s the alarmed talk at every voter’s breakfast table.
Truss should resign and withdraw, and the person Tory MPs wanted in the first place should replace her at once, with no more ballots, hustings or hoopla, and set about restoring order.
Then sterling will rise, borrowing forecasts will fall, pressure on the Bank of England for breathtaking hikes in interest rates will abate, mortgage lenders will calm down and we’ll be able to breathe again.
All this is within the grasp of the 1922 Committee, if it becomes clear the parliamentary party demands it. The components of such an operation are all there. But, with many ministers and backbenchers in a blind funk, who is to co-ordinate them?
It cannot be Sunak. His instinct must surely be to wait quietly for the call. But somebody does need to provide a discreet conduit for that call. Tory backbenchers don’t all talk to each other and parliament isn’t even sitting. There will be more than 300 lonesome souls out there, sleepless in the small hours, wondering how many others are thinking what they’re thinking.
A shadow whipping operation is needed to assemble a consensus and tell the chief whip and the chairman of the 1922 Committee. Both must learn that Kwasi Kwarteng and Truss will not get their mini-budget through parliament without amendments that kick away the foundations of their ideology; that ministers will not get away with cutting welfare benefits to fund tax cuts; and that any leadership bid by Boris Johnson, who has always favoured Truss because she would fail (and over whose head the verdict of the Commons privileges committee hangs) will never again be indulged by colleagues.
And - lest Truss digs in - the nuclear option of an early general election must be on the table, but only as a backstop whose very threat should preclude its use. There must be people privately prepared to blow up their own government rather than let it disintegrate slowly and take the rest of the country with it.
I know how wretched backbenchers will be feeling. “Please God, secure my salary at least for the next two years.” They should know that to dig in is to abandon hope. Yet there is still hope. A different Tory government could win - Keir Starmer may be riding high but Nick Clegg rode equally high. And even if (more likely) Sunak lost a 2024 election, he could avoid the almost unimaginable rout Trussonomics threatens, so more backbenchers would keep their seats. All is not yet lost for 2024 but if they can’t cut themselves free of Truss and Kwarteng, all soon will be.
For once, self-interest, principle and the national interest all light a path ahead for government backbenchers. Otherwise, there is only darkness: for self, for party and for country. Courage is required.
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She’s finished. Risky (you may think) to say this so early? But she is. The parliamentary Conservative Party must urgently cut itself free of what will soon be the political corpse of its leadership.