Liz Truss fights for survival as even allies say she could have only days left

[brooklynite]

Source: The Guardian

Liz Truss is fighting for her political survival, with Conservative MPs threatening to oust her and even allies warning she has just days to turn around her premiership despite ripping up her economic strategy and appointing Jeremy Hunt as chancellor.

The beleaguered prime minister will attempt to shore up her crumbling support by gathering her cabinet ministers at No 10 on Monday evening and then embarking on a series of meetings with mutinous Tory MPs before the next budget in a fortnight’s time.

After crisis talks at Chequers over their new fiscal plan on Sunday, Hunt insisted that Truss was still “in charge” despite her increasingly perilous position, as he warned of further public spending cuts and failed to rule out more U-turns on her disastrous mini-budget including scrapping the 1p cut to the income tax base rate.

Ministers will wait anxiously for the markets to open – the first test of whether Truss’s decision to sack Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor and tear up her mini-budget will be enough – amid fears that sterling could head towards parity with the dollar and rising bond yields put upward pressure on mortgage rates.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/16/liz-truss-fights-for-survival-as-even-allies-say-she-could-have-only-days-left

[question everything]

1. Any chance they will reverse Brexit? Can it even help?

[StevieM]

5. Not for a quarter of a century.

They don't hold these referendums regularly because if they did people would just keep calling for new votes until they got their way.

The earliest I could see another vote on joining the EU would be the mid-2040s.

[Delphinus]

12. Oy.

I was hoping they could back out of it in my lifetime.

[Emrys]

13. There is no such stricture on holding referendums in the UK.

Such referendums can only be advisory anyway under UK law. The Brexit referendum was made "binding" by sleight of hand from the Tories in power at the time, and the RW media ran with it.

If you're basing your "quarter of a century" on the idea that UK referendum questions should not be revisited for "a generation", that doesn't take into account that a political generation in the context of repetition of a referendum on Irish reunification is defined in the Good Friday Agreement as seven years, and there's no reason why that shouldn't apply UK-wide.

Given the current mess and recent polling, which has shown a change of heart among the public and even some of the right-wing press (e.g. the Telegraph) about the EU, I don't think anyone can make any reasonable predictions on what will happen.

Labour, currently far ahead in the polls, has said it wants to "make Brexit work". The only way it can be made to work is to soften it and accept freedom of movement - anathema to the Tories and their fellow travellers - which would open up the potential for all sorts of improvements in relations and trade with European countries. EFTA membership is probably not on the cards, but a similar one-off arrangement that applied only to the UK might be possible.

And once that happened, it would start the process of continually redefining the UK's relationship with the EU. It might never amount to full membership, but it might get pretty close.

This is all without taking into account moves by Scotland, for instance, which has been courting the EU for years with a view to joining if and when it gains independence, with encouraging responses from EU figures. That in itself would lead to changes in relations between the EU and what would be left of the UK, given the common border.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Conservatism is a bankrupt cult.

It's past time to put these fiscal fuckups out to pasture. They only know how to break things.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Liz Truss vs lettuce: Tabloid's cruel test of longevity

Link to tweet

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/uk-news/2022/10/17/liz-truss-lettuce-daily-star/

Which will last the longest – British PM Liz Truss’ time in office, or a head of lettuce?

That’s the cheeky question being posed by a British tabloid, as speculation over the new PM’s leadership continues to mount.

The Daily Star has live-streamed the decline of a head of unrefrigerated lettuce on YouTube for four days, suggesting Ms Truss’ premiership might be the first to expire.

The gag began when the publication posted a Twitter poll on Saturday asking its readers: “Will Liz Truss still be PM within the 10-day shelf life of our lettuce?”

[3catwoman3]

4. Will her time be measured in...

...Scaramucci units?

[oldsoftie]

6. I'm sorry but its just ridiculous to have revolving heads of state.

Hell she oughta at least SOME time to show SOMETHING. Its barely been a month

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Hunt rips up most of mini-budget and scales back energy prices plan

In what amounts to an utter humiliation for Truss, who now seems stripped of any political authority, the new chancellor said the only remaining tax cuts would be those already being put into place – the move to reverse the recent rise in national insurance, and a cut to stamp duty.

In a televised statement ahead of a full Commons statement on Monday afternoon Hunt, who was appointed in place of the sacked Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, said the plan to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p to 19p in April 2023, a major part of the mini-budget, would be frozen indefinitely.
...
The other tax cuts announced by Kwarteng, to dividend taxes, off-payroll working changes, a new VAT-free shopping scheme, and a freeze on some alcohol duties, would be scrapped, he said.
...
Even more significantly, in an attempt to claw back spending as well as boosting revenue, Hunt also announced that the government’s scheme to cap energy prices for two years, costing about £80bn, would only be universal up to April, being targeted after that at poorer households.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/17/hunt-rips-up-most-of-mini-budget-and-scales-back-energy-prices-plan

This is much more what you would have expected from Rishi Sunak, who lost to Truss in the Tory leadership election (and was the preferred choice of Tory MPs), who had been Johnson's chancellor before resigning when Johnson became too much of an electoral liability. The Tory establishment has basically told the members "see, the markets told us we were right, so Truss is now just a figurehead - back to Business As Usual, and we pray the markets give us a break".

The internal fighting in the Tories now must be epic - Hunt may control the economic part of the government, but the radicals like Braverman will be pushing illiberal immigration and law changes.

From a poll taken before Kwarteng was sacked: "Tories now lag behind Labour on 14 out of 15 key policies, poll shows" (the exception is defence, at which Ben Wallace has kept his head down, supporting Ukraine - which he's done a reasonable job at, so that he has also been put forward as a possible new leader, on the grounds he seems the most sensible one of the lot. I have no idea what his policy tendencies are, outside defence).

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Conservative's economists always invent the theories to sell publicly to enrich conservatives

and call the theories by some fancy name that makes the public think we're all in this together.

Supply-side, free market, laissez-faire have been called other things as well. And they have their iconic gurus - von Mises, Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer. All basically the same excuses for passing the money UP the income scale.

[IronLionZion]

9. And they'll point fingers at "liberal elitists" for being "socialist"

[Warpy]

10. People didn't want Thatcher back, after all

Lavishing tax cuts on the idle rich while screwing over all the people who work to keep the country going doesn't seem to have the appeal it once did. Maybe the UK is realizing that libertarian bullshit is just that: bullshit.

I hope it's contagious.

[pfitz59]

11. The entire world is in turmoil

not just Russia and Ukraine. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day pointing fingers. One fact is certain. Four years of Trumpism did not help cool the fires engulfing the world.