Britain deserves an election NOW, Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer says – as warring Tories seek to dump Liz Truss as PM.
Plotters are turning to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to avoid total carnage at the polls.
A group of MPs want him as the new PM, with Rishi Sunak back as Chancellor in a bid to calm the financial markets.
They hope Ms Truss will step aside. But Sir Keir says a new Tory is NOT the answer – and that a general election IS.
Writing in the Sunday Mirror, he says: “The quicker this shambolic government is gone, the quicker we can get on with the job of fixing their mess and rebuilding our country.”
Based on recent polls, Electoral Calculus today gave the Tories just 85 seats compared to Labour’s 471 if there was a vote now. Worried MPs see Mr Wallace, 52, as the Cabinet’s only competent minister. One plotter said: “Most of us now favour a coronation for Ben. He’s the best we’ve got.
“But he might need some persuading to take the job.
“And getting Rishi back would calm the bond markets and strengthen the pound.”
MPs want their backbench shop steward Sir Graham Brady to go to Ms Truss this week and urge her to go quietly. He has spoken to her three times already to warn of the peril she is in. And even before she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor, 120 Tories were understood to have submitted letters of no confidence in Ms Truss.
Asked at the Tory conference earlier this month whether he would consider running for leader, Mr Wallace said: “I don’t rule it out.”
He was an early favourite in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson, but chose not to stand in July. If Ms Truss digs her heels in it will need a change in the rules to allow MPs to bypass 1720,00 party members to install their candidate in No10.
Sir Graham will form a new 1922 executive on Tuesday after the departure of vice-chair Nusrat Ghani on becoming Ms Truss’s industry minister.
One plan is to increase the number of MP nominations a contender needs from 20 to more than 50% of the 356-strong Parliamentary party – ensuring there is only one name on the final ballot.
But one MP warned: “Members will be furious not to get a vote and they’ll go on strike. That means no one to canvass or deliver leaflets. But it’s the least worst option.”
MPs have now dismissed the idea of letting Ms Truss stick it out or trying to get Mr Johnson back.
One said: “Neither option works if we want to save the country and the party from disaster.”
Another added: “Boris is not the solution. Liz is not the answer.”
Another plan under discussion is to turn to Ms Truss’s former leadership rivals Mr Sunak and Commons leader Penny Mordaunt.
But there is likely to be an argument over who should become PM.
Mr Sunak got 137 MPs’ votes in the summer, compared to 113 for Ms Truss and Ms Mordaunt’s 105.
Former No10 aide Dominic Cummings said the team around Ms Truss is so bad “it’s close to impossible that she can recover”.
He added: “Their actions resemble what you’d see if her worst enemies could brief on her behalf a few times per day.”
On Friday Ms Truss astonished her MPs by firing Mr Kwarteng for the mini-budget she ordered him to deliver – and bringing in Jeremy Hunt from the cold as new Chancellor.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Sacking the Chancellor for implementing the PM’s plans is not the total change of direction we need.”
Ms Truss further confounded her MPs by cutting short Friday’s press conference after eight minutes and scuttling out of the room after taking only four questions from journalists.
Veteran Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope said Ms Truss had turned the Conservative Party and the Government into laughing stocks.
And Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner added: “She’s crashed the British economy. Now she’s sacked her Chancellor for implementing her own policies. She’s unfit to be PM and the Tories are unfit to govern.”
The PM announced she was ripping up a key plank of her budget to save £18billion which means Corporation Tax will rise from 19% to 25% next April as Mr Sunak originally planned. Former leadership contender Mr Hunt – now back in the frame for a possible tilt at becoming PM – flexed his muscles on his first day, calling Ms Truss’s mini-budget a “mistake” and rubbishing her pledge of tax cuts.
Mr Hunt told Radio 4: “Taxes are not going to come down by as much as people hoped, and some taxes will have to go up.”
Former Cabinet minister David Davis said: “She’s going to have to give the new Chancellor a chance and allow him to do what he wants to do to see whether it works.”
Ex-Tory leader William Hague said Ms Truss’s premiership “hangs by a thread” and former Treasury minister David Mellor added she is “undoubtedly toast.” Meanwhile, in a survey of 500 small business owners, more than nine in 10 said they want an immediate election.
Marcus Wright, of Bolton Business Finance, said: “Our governing party is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard.” And Gillian Ferguson, of Scotland’s Twisted Empire Bakes, said: “My son’s junior class would make less of a mess.”
Ms Truss says the UK is still on course for 2.5% growth. But the International Monetary Fund puts that figure at just 1.5%.
As she enters her 41st day in office Ms Truss could become the shortest serving PM in history. The record is held by George Canning who lasted 118 days in 1827 before dying.
