Category Archives: Liz Truss

Suella Braverman resignation letter: what she said and totally meant

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Outgoing home secretary sticks boot in and throws down gauntlet to embattled Liz Truss

The official release of letters by Downing Street between a prime minister and a resigning member of the cabinet usually offer only the sparsest glimpses of real emotion.

They use heavily coded language to hint at anguish, to avoid the departure sparking a bitter divide between two senior members of the same party. Not so with the outgoing home secretary, Suella Braverman.

Earlier today, I sent an official document from my personal email to a trusted parliamentary colleague as part of policy engagement, and with the aim of garnering support for government policy on migration. This constitutes a technical infringement of the rules … nevertheless it is right for me to go.

Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign.

It is obvious to everyone that we are going through a tumultuous time. I have concerns about the direction of this government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have had serious concerns about this government’s commitment to honouring manifesto commitments, such as reducing overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration, particularly the dangerous small boats crossings.

In even the brief time that I have been here, it has been very clear that there is much to do, in terms of delivering on the priorities of the British people.

I accept your resignation and respect the decision you have made. It is important that the ministerial code is upheld, and that Cabinet confidentiality is respected.

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Liz Truss’s plans to move UK embassy to Jerusalem to be fought by legal group

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International Centre of Justice for Palestinians says diplomatic move in Israel in breach of international obligations

A legal group that supports the rights of Palestinians has written to Liz Truss to tell her that it plans to launch a judicial review in an attempt to block any UK government movement of the British embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has commissioned a legal opinion in support of its argument that such a move would be in breach of the government’s international obligations.

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Minister tries to defend Truss by saying cabinet failed to realise mini-budget would backfire – UK politics live

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Latest updates: James Heappey, defence minister, also claims that Truss deserves credit for admitting she made mistake

Liam Fox, the Tory former international trade secretary, told Sky News this morning that Liz Truss’s future would partly depend on whether the financial markets settle down following the latest mini-budget U-turns. He said:

We can all read the polls and I don’t need to tell you what the atmosphere is like at Westminster. People will be weighing up what the prime minister said last night - that she had made mistakes, that she learned from those, and that the measures that Jeremy Hunt had put in place seemed to be providing the necessary economic stability in the markets.

If the markets don’t believe that a Conservative government is able to manage public finances sensibly then that government has had it.

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No 10 chief of staff accompanied Libyan militiaman to Foreign Office meeting

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Exclusive: Mark Fullbrook said to have acted as Fathi Bashagha’s PR adviser, as officials were lobbied on foreign policy

Mark Fullbrook, the No 10 chief of staff, accompanied a controversial Libyan politician involved in an attempted military coup to a meeting in the Foreign Office to lobby officials on foreign policy, it has emerged, raising further questions over his influence.

Labour has said Fullbrook’s position as Liz Truss’s most senior official is “untenable” after it was revealed that he facilitated unofficial meetings in June with senior cabinet ministers for Fathi Bashagha, a Libyan politician. Bashagha, who is seeking international support as a rival prime minister, has links to the Russian Wagner Group and a military strongman in the east of the country.

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Jeremy Hunt to detail mini-budget U-turn to MPs after Penny Mordaunt insists PM had ‘genuine reason’ for missing Commons question – live

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Latest updates: chancellor to make statement after leader of Commons denied PM was hiding under a desk

Judging by what Conservative MPs have been telling journalists in private over the last few days, the consensus (but not unanimous) view among Tories seems to be that Liz Truss will have to be replaced as party leader before the next election. But very few MPs are saying that in public, and Sky’s Tom Larkin, who is running a spreadsheet of Tories calling for Truss’s resignation, has only got three names on it.

Damian Green, the former first secretary of state, was on the Today programme and you would expect him to be on the Larkin list. He is chair of the One Nation Conservatives caucus, the group most horrified by Truss’s experiment with hardline free market ideology. But he insisted that Truss did have the credibility to carry on as PM, despite the fact she is abandoning most of the key tax policies at the heart of her leadership campaign. He explained:

She is a pragmatist - she’s realised that the first budget didn’t work in spectacular fashion, so she’s now taken the sensible view that we will now try something else, and she’s appointed a very sensible chancellor in Jeremy Hunt.

I obviously don’t know what he’s going to say, but clearly what he’s going to do is already beginning to reassure the markets, and I hope will continue to do so afterwards.

Yes, because if she leads us into the next election, that will mean that the next two years have been a lot more successful than the past four weeks have been. That would not only be good for the Conservative party, that would be particularly good for the country as well, so I think everyone would welcome that.

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Jamie Wallis accuses fellow Tory MPs of exploiting trans issues during contest for PM

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Trans MP says senior Tories sought ‘cheap political points’ and tells Liz Truss to resign for bringing them into government

Jamie Wallis, a Conservative MP who came out as transgender earlier this year, has accused fellow Tory MPs of exploiting and weaponising trans issues “in order to score cheap political points” during the recent leadership contest.

The MP for Bridgend in Wales, who has written a letter to Liz Truss calling on her to resign as prime minister, described the tactics used during the battle to succeed Boris Johnson as “extremely unpleasant”.

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

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Prime minister to meet mutinous Tory MPs this week in effort to shore up her position after U-turns on tax

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 and then embarking on a series of meetings with mutinous Tory MPs before the next budget in a fortnight’s time.

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No 10 chief of staff’s position untenable amid lobbying claims, says Labour

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Mark Fullbrook accused of trying to change UK policy by arranging for ministers to meet Libyan politician

Labour has claimed Mark Fullbrook’s position as Downing Street chief of staff is no longer tenable after it was revealed that before his appointment he tried to change UK foreign policy by arranging for two cabinet ministers to meet Fathi Bashagha, a Libyan politician with links to the Russian Wagner Group.

The Guardian had previously reported that Fullbrook, as chief executive of Fullbrook Strategies, had lobbied on behalf of Bashagha, but the Sunday Times alleged he arranged for Bashagha to come to London in June, where he met the then business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, and the education secretary at the time, Nadhim Zahawi.

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Liz Truss may be safe until Halloween but nightmare is far from over

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PM will gather her cabinet for a rare Monday meeting to try to convince them she still holds levers of power

When Liz Truss gathers her cabinet in Downing Street for a rare Monday meeting to shore up support and talk them through her radically changed plans for the Halloween budget, she will be trying to convince them she still has a grip on power.

Sacking Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor and bringing in Jeremy Hunt – who quickly buried key elements of her economic strategy, with tax rises and public spending cuts to come – was a necessary political sacrifice if she was to survive in No 10.

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UK food banks at breaking point urge Liz Truss to boost aid to poorest

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As cost of living crisis bites, 3,000 volunteers across several organisations sign letter of warning to the prime minister

Thousands of food bank volunteers will warn Liz Truss on Monday that they are having to ration provisions, as their services have become “overstretched and exhausted” because of an influx of people needing their help.

In a sign of a continuing cost of living crisis that was building even before the economic crisis that followed the government’s mini-budget, a letter signed by more than 3,000 food bank workers will be delivered to Downing Street.

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The unravelling: the full story of how Liz Truss lost her way – and her authority in the Tory party

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The prime minister ditched her close ally Kwasi Kwarteng to save her own job – but now Conservative MPs are openly plotting to replace her

After an astonishing eight-minute press conference, in which Liz Truss attempted to salvage her imploding leadership by firing her closest political ally and ditching a totemic policy that won her the job, the most telling reaction was that of officials who had served in Boris Johnson’s chaotic Downing Street.

Just a few short months ago, they had been forced to endure months of scandal, followed by the resignations of dozens of ministers. They had even awkwardly brushed shoulders with cabinet members gathered in Downing Street to tell Johnson that his time was up. But after watching Truss’s hunted demeanour on Friday afternoon, their suffering suddenly seemed trifling.

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Joe Biden: Liz Truss tax cuts a ‘mistake’ and ‘I wasn’t the only one’ who thought so

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US president rejects ‘cutting taxes on the super-wealthy’ and says he is worried by ‘lack of economic growth and sound policy in other countries’

Joe Biden has called Liz Truss’s abandoned UK tax cut plan a “mistake” and said he is worried that other nations’ fiscal policies may hurt the US amid “worldwide inflation”.

Biden said it was “predictable” that the new British prime minister was forced on Friday to walk back plans to aggressively cut taxes without identifying cost savings, after Truss’s proposal caused turmoil in global financial markets.

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Jeremy Hunt says mistakes made and taxes set to rise as Bank warns of ‘strong response’ to inflation – UK politics live

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Chancellor says ‘difficult decisions’ ahead with some departments needing to find savings and some taxes set to rise

Hunt says the UK has a “massive amount going for us”, but the reason it remains a top economy is because the country has been prepared to make “tough decisions” – and this moment is one of them.

The new chancellor says he is “very sensitive” to people at the bottom of the income scale but will not commit to not cutting benefits. “I’ve only been in the job for a matter of hours,” he says, adding that he will be sitting down with the Treasury team later today.

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Jeremy Hunt says difficult decisions ahead after Truss ‘mistakes’

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New chancellor vows to be ‘completely honest with country’ amid rumours PM has only weeks left in role

The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has spoken of “mistakes” made by the Liz Truss administration and predicted “difficult decisions ahead”.

Appearing on Sky News on Saturday, in his first interview since replacing Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, the former health secretary signalled he would have a “clean slate” when it came to the budget, and vowed to be “completely honest with the country” amid rumours that Truss has only weeks left as prime minister.

Hunt, who was parachuted into No 11 in an attempt to restore order to Truss’s ailing government, also suggested that some taxes could rise, as he promised to bring stability to the UK in the wake of the disastrous mini-budget.

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Keir Starmer criticises ‘grotesque chaos’ under Liz Truss government

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Labour leader says UK is ‘crying out for clear leadership’ and his party ‘must provide it’

Keir Starmer has criticised the “grotesque chaos” of recent weeks and said the government “no longer has a mandate from the British people”.

The Labour leader said there were no historical precedents for the ongoing economic turmoil and that the prime minister, Liz Truss, would not be able to “fix the mess she has created”.

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Truss premiership ‘hanging by thread’ after Kwarteng sacking and latest U-turn

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PM’s move to replace chancellor and commit to raising corporation tax fails to placate markets or Tory MPs

Liz Truss is desperately clinging to her premiership after she sacked her chancellor and ripped up the mini-budget but failed to calm the financial markets or furious Conservative MPs.

In a humiliating reversal, the prime minister backed down on plans to scrap an £18bn rise in corporation tax and replaced Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor with Jeremy Hunt.

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Kwasi Kwarteng reportedly believes Liz Truss ‘only has a few weeks’ – as it happened

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Source close to sacked chancellor briefs Times that ‘wagons are still going to circle’ around embattled prime minsiter

The Conservative peer, Ed Vaizey, said he disagreed with the international trade secretary, Greg Hands, who earlier said Kwasi Kwarteng’s early return is not unusual. “It is quite unusual for this to happen,” he said.

Speaking to Sky News, Vaizey said the chancellor cutting his trip to the US short is “not a good sign”. He said:

I’m afraid the chancellor coming back a day early doesn’t fill one with confidence.

The fact that people were speculating about the prime minister’s leadership this early in her premiership is not ideal, but I think he’s just got to bite the bullet. He’s got to try to give the markets confidence in the British economy.

If he can do that then perhaps he can say: ‘Well, I had to do some difficult choices, slightly humiliating choices, but the result is stabilisation and I can move forward.’

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Kwasi Kwarteng was logical choice as chancellor but hubris was his downfall

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Truss ally has experienced a dramatic reversal of fortune after five weeks and three days in the job

When Kwasi Kwarteng became chancellor on 6 September it seemed a logical career progression. Deemed a politician imbued with economic doctrine, even his critics conceded he was determined and intellectually imposing. Five weeks and three days later, he is gone.

The newly restored backbench MP for Spelthorne in Surrey is not the shortest-serving chancellor of modern times, but only because the holder of that unwelcome title, Iain Macleod, died from a heart attack a month into his tenure in 1970.

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Liz Truss appoints Jeremy Hunt as chancellor after sacking Kwarteng

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Former foreign secretary and leadership contender is back in cabinet, in stunning reversal of fortune

Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as Liz Truss’s new chancellor, in a stunning reversal of political fortune and a sign that the beleaguered prime minister wants to reach out to other sections of the Conservative party.

Hunt, the former foreign secretary and health secretary, has twice tried unsuccessfully to become Conservative leader.

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Kwasi Kwarteng says ‘let’s see’ when asked about potential U-turn on corporation tax – UK politics live

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Chancellor does not rule out increasing corporation tax when asked about whether government will perform U-turn

The Home Office has taken the modern slavery brief away from the minister responsible for safeguarding and classed it as an “illegal immigration and asylum” issue, updated online ministerial profiles show.

The move is seen as a clear sign that the department is doubling down on Suella Braverman’s suggestion that people are “gaming” the modern slavery system and that victims of the crime are no longer being prioritised.

The largest single group of modern slavery victims under the referral system last year were British children – including those who were exploited through county lines. The evidence shows the majority of exploitation takes place in the UK rather than across borders.

The government should be treating this as an enforcement and safeguarding issue and taking stronger action against the crime of modern slavery wherever it takes place.

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