Truss team fears Cabinet exodus as Braverman reportedly leaves
LIZ Truss’s advisers are concerned members of her Cabinet are planning to resign to try to force the UK prime minister out of office, amid reports that UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has left the government.
The Guardian newspaper reported Braverman’s departure, in a dramatic blow to the embattled premier.
A person familiar with the matter said Truss’s advisers see Education Secretary Kit Malthouse and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch as resignation threats. Malthouse delivered a brutal assessment of the premier’s missteps on a Cabinet phone call on Monday to discuss new Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt’s plans to rip-up Truss’s economic programme, according to the person.
Truss’s declined to comment on Braverman’s departure. Braverman and a spokesperson for her didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Badenoch told Bloomberg she is not resigning. Malthouse didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Ministerial resignations can be fatal for a prime minister. Boris Johnson’s tenure was ended by the rapid departures of then Health Secretary Sajid Javid and ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, which triggered a mass exodus from his government. As angry rebels struggle to agree on who they want to succeed Truss, a big resignation is seen as one way to topple her.
Support for the premier and her ruling Conservatives has plunged to record depths over her botched programme of tax cuts, which triggered chaos in the financial markets and forced up borrowing costs and mortgage rates.
Hunt has reversed most of the policies to restore financial stability after the UK’s public finances suddenly unravelled. But in doing so, he has put the Tories on a path to another round of punishing austerity as Britons struggle with a cost-of living crisis.
The debacle has left Truss clinging to power, with her own MPs openly plotting to oust her. Her administration is vulnerable to Tory rebellions, and has already caved in to demands to raise state pension benefits in line with soaring inflation and watered down a plan to restart shale gas fracking.
“I’m a fighter, not a quitter,” Truss said in the House of Commons on facing lawmakers for the first time since she was forced to junk most of her economic programme just weeks after announcing it. BLOOMBERG
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