In the course of 12 hours on Wednesday, multiple crises hit Liz Truss’s government which in normal times would have each individually caused a long-running scandal. Now they come so thick and fast, something that happened at noon is barely remembered by 7pm. Yet the prime minister clings on.
Just after 12, at PMQs, the prime minister directly contradicted her new chancellor and said the “triple lock” on the state pension was safe. News broke that one of her most trusted and senior aides was suspended after a toxic briefing war in the Sunday papers.
Then without drawing breath, Truss sacked her home secretary, Suella Braverman, for a baffling row about an email address amid deadlock over their views on migration policy. Braverman sent back an excoriating letter about the direction of Truss’s government. Truss installed one of her most prominent critics, Grant Shapps, in Braverman’s place.
Tory MPs were also threatened with losing the whip if they voted with Labour on an anti-fracking motion. Then a minister wrongly said it was no longer a confidence vote. Many abstained. The chief whip resigned. Then by 1.33am the media were told it was a confidence vote after all. The chief whip had un-resigned. MPs who abstained have no idea – even by Thursday morning – whether they were still Conservative MPs.
Chaos like that was never seen even in the darkest days of the Brexit wars or Partygate. Truss is less than 50 days into her premiership.
So how is the prime minister still in post? Most MPs will tell you the situation is unsustainable, but it remains sustainable as long as they remain unsure about how to act.
Worryingly for Truss, the MPs who are starting to turn are the middle ranks of the party – those with chunky but not rock solid majorities. If Truss leads the party into electoral oblivion, they will be out. If a successor manages to close the gap and still lose, they might keep their seats. If that group decides their only chance of survival is to move en masse in the next 24 hours, the prime minister is finished.
Despite the theories flying around Westminster, there is no playbook for removing a prime minister this early in her tenure. Many have reverted to the only method they know how to use – writing letters to the 1922 Committee saying they have no confidence in the prime minister. But Truss is technically protected from a vote of no confidence for a year
The only person who knows the true number is Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, but multiple MPs have predicted the number has now far exceeded the threshold of 54 that is required to trigger a vote. One MP predicted the numbers may already be in three figures, though just nine have gone public so far.
Without the guidance of formal rules, Brady may come to the conclusion that, whatever the technical threshold, the weight of the private communications from MPs is so great that Truss cannot command the confidence of the party. If and when he shares that with the prime minister, the cabinet may decide to act.
Perhaps if they do, they could even set a timetable for her departure that would allow them still to deliver the 31 October statement in order to maintain some semblance of order. But it is a dangerous gamble that would then bind a successor. And who would even want to succeed her and lead the party to almost certain defeat within 18 months? Is such a proposition really attractive to Rishi Sunak?
