The Conservative MPs in Britain are looking to oust a sitting Prime Minister for the second time in a year. Liz Truss is facing a no-confidence motion as more than 100 MPs of the Tories are gearing up to submit letters of no confidence in the Prime Minister. The country has, since Brexit, lost three prime ministers amid political crises.

Her economic policies that have triggered a financial as well as a political crisis have put a question mark on her 40-day old prime ministership. Conservative MPs are reportedly discussing replacing her with a joint ticket of House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak, who lost to Truss during the election.

In fact, social media is abuzz with discussions on how long she would last as the prime minister. 

So, what happened?

Following Boris Johnson’s ouster, Liz Truss promised tax cuts and slashing of red tape. But her rival Rishi Sunak had warned against immediate tax cuts. He called it an act of self-sabotage, and said that the party must be wary of major spending pledges as well as tax cuts. “I would urge them to treat with caution any vision that doesn’t involve any difficult trade-offs and remember that if something sounds good to be true – then it probably is,” he said.

Chief Secretary of the Treasury Simon Clarke who worked under Sunak said that the households cannot wait for years for a tax cut. Clarke said that Truss would cut taxes in seven weeks and not seven years. Following internal criticism from backers, Sunak said he would slash taxes by 20 per cent by the end of the decade, unlike Truss who said she would cut taxes on day one.

Cut to September 23, when Britain Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng, in his “mini-budget” with an aim to break the ‘cycle of stagnation’ included tax cuts of 45 billion pounds or $50 billion. These tax cuts also included relief of 45 per cent for the highest earners.

But this pushed the pound to fall to an all-time low against the US dollar, with the cost of borrowing rising sharply. The Bank of England intervened to buy 65 billion pounds of government debt to stop an economic crisis. A spate of experts criticised the tax cuts, with Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think-tank saying that they introduced a series of “unforced errors”, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying that it was “closely monitoring” the situation.

Defending their policy, Kwarteng said that the path they were on was unsustainable and that they could not have continued to raise taxes. “However, I totally understand the need to be credible with markets. We will show markets our plan is sound, credible and will work to drive growth,” he said.

But Kwarteng seems to have given in to the rising criticism, and made a U-turn on the plans to cut 45 per cent of tax for the wealthy – which was termed a tax cut for the rich.

Truss then sacked Kwarteng, who was also her longtime friend and ally, to replace with Jeremy Hunt, who had earlier served as the health secretary and foreign secretary for the Conservative governments of David Cameron and Theresa May.

Hunt’s ideas are significantly different from Truss’. He said that taxes would have to rise and spending cut in order to prevent further increases in the UK government borrowing costs.

Will Liz Truss be ousted?

However, Liz Truss is protected under a leadership challenge for a year under the party rules. But some Conservative legislators believe that if they can agree on a successor, then she can be forced to resign. Moreover, in order to change the rules, two thirds of the party’s 360 MPs would need to tell the 1922’s executive to change the rules. Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace are among the names in the running, even though an immediate ouster is not likely.

Some also believe that this is a time for stability and that Liz Truss should be given a chance to restore order.

Also read: UK lawmakers will try to oust PM Liz Truss this week despite General Election warning: Report

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