Truss must get a grip if she is to remain as prime minister

It is hard to recall a more disastrous first month in office of any democratic leader. Then again, new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss cannot genuinely claim to have been elected democratically — she was only voted into power by about 80,000 Conservative Party members. This lack of legitimacy may come to haunt her in the months ahead, as a future leadership change cannot be ruled out.

Normally, a new leader gets a honeymoon period as the party and country rally around the premier, hoping for a new dawn, warmed by optimism and fresh hope. Today, most British voters already want her to resign.

The so-called mini-budget announced two weeks into her premiership ranks as one of the most calamitous policy pronouncements of recent British history. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng delivered it to a crowd of stony-faced Tory colleagues, many staring in disbelief. Most of them could not understand the logic of £45 billion ($49 billion) of unfunded tax cuts. They also knew what the public outcry would be against the tax cuts for the well-off.

The market reaction was devastating. The pound plummeted, as did the stock market. Interest rates continue to head upwards. Any benefits that homeowners receive from the new government’s help with their energy bills will be more than canceled out by huge rises in mortgage payments.

It took all of 10 days for the PM to order her first major U-turn by abandoning the decision to cut the 45 percent top rate of tax. All comparisons of Truss with Margaret Thatcher — the headlines of “The lady’s not for turning,” evoking Thatcher’s famous phrase — became a colossal embarrassment.

Truss’s authority did not just seep away but was swept away in torrents. Throughout the annual Conservative Party conference at the start of this month, Cabinet ministers voiced criticisms and differences of opinion with carefree abandon. Cabinet responsibility was nonexistent. Party discipline was shredded. The media was deluged with scathing comments from Tory politicians.

Truss has had internal challenges from the outset. She has never won a general election. She has never had the support of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, which preferred her leadership rival Rishi Sunak. She was only the third, arguably fourth, choice among her colleagues. Therefore, her authority in Parliament is weak. Her mandate is ultra-shaky.

Polls show that the opposition Labour Party has as much as 52 percent support compared to the Conservatives’ 22 percent. For Britain, this is an astonishing gap — the highest margin for Labour since the 1990s. It is not so much an endorsement of Labour but a massive anti-Tory swing. If a general election were to be held tomorrow, the Tories would lose huge swathes of seats, something that will focus the minds of Conservative MPs who are anxious about their jobs. Many feel that Truss is one misstep away from being ousted. Even Kwarteng reportedly put her chances of surviving at only 40:60.

Worryingly for the Conservatives, the party has lost, perhaps for a generation, its reputation for economic competence. This has been its electoral trump card that it could bash Labour with time and time again. No longer. In the polls, Labour is now more trusted on the economy by some distance.

What can Truss do? She will try to find some true-blue policies to push that all Tories will back, perhaps on immigration. But this will not be enough if she does not restore confidence in the British economy in the markets. She emphasizes growth relentlessly, but it is not clear how this will occur. Brexit has left huge barriers to an export-led recovery.

The economy needs skilled immigration but the hard right of the party, personified by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, wants to cut immigration drastically. Braverman even claimed that “a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.” Rwanda is where this government wants to send asylum seekers. Truss, on the other hand, has called for loosening some of the immigration restrictions to help the economy, something that is vital if there is to be a chance of real and sustained growth. Employers routinely complain of a lack of workers.

Truss and her chancellor could reverse the rest of their tax cuts. This would be a massive humiliation. Another option is to slash public spending, which would be tough, or add to the already-massive public debt. None of these options will be easy.

A parliamentary majority of 71 no longer looks very secure, such are the tribal divisions within the party. Sunak supporters form one camp. There are the Boris Johnson loyalists in another. Many of the rural MPs do not like Truss’s decision to restart fracking. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, one of the most popular Cabinet ministers, will resign if there is any sliding away from the commitment to increase defense spending to 3 percent of gross domestic product. A further rebellion is a racing certainty if she pursues her plan to increase welfare benefits only in line with wages, rather than inflation. About 40 Conservative MPs from the North of England are also insisting she does not abandon the so-called leveling-up agenda, which is about investing in infrastructure in the region to even up the geographical imbalance in the country’s economy.

The prime minister will no doubt insist that she will press the reset button, rearrange the 10 Downing Street team and be seen to listen and learn from earlier failings. She needs to abandon her more disruptive schemes and fill the political firmament with a sense of reassuring calm. A deal with the EU on Northern Ireland would close off one looming disaster. She should abandon the reckless promised review into the location of the British Embassy in Israel, which risks a fall-out with major allies, not least in the Middle East, who may well junk plans for a free trade deal with the UK.

For Truss to survive, she has to get a grip and be seen to be in control. She needs to do this while also being less abrasive and more consensual. This starts with the economy, restoring a degree of trust with both the markets and the electorate. She needs to adhere to proper policymaking processes rather than relying on outside think tanks and lobby groups with less-than-transparent sources of funding that have already pushed her to gamble with the fate of the British economy. She needs to heal the fissure with the civil service, without which she will not be able to deliver effectively. She should stop ignoring Scotland — she is yet to speak to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon; hardly responsible leadership.

The UK still has so much going for it as a country and an economy. It will recover. But the chances of Truss being the leader to bring about a course correction are looking more and more remote.

• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, in London. Twitter: @Doylech