Almost half of Conservative supporters feel the party made the wrong choice of leader this summer, according to a surprising new survey.
According to YouGov statistics, 48% of Tory supporters think Liz Truss was a bad choice for the party’s leader, indicating that they are experiencing buyer’s remorse.
According to the study, which was done for The Times, just 28% of respondents thought the party made the correct decision.
Just 9% of the electorate as a whole believe that the Conservatives made the correct choice in Ms. Truss as their leader.
The survey of 1,675 people found that 66% of the nation believes the party picked the wrong leader.
Even though the under-fire PM was just chosen as the party’s new leader last month, rebellious Conservative MPs have given Ms Truss only 17 days to save her job.
Tory whips warned that if Kwasi Kwarteng’s economic speech on October 31 does not calm the instability in the financial markets, she may face a leadership challenge.
And late yesterday night, there were rumors that Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt might run together for prime minister.
The results of the most recent YouGov survey will be a particular source of worry for Conservative MPs over 2019 Conservative supporters.
According to The Times, 62% of Conservative voters who supported Boris Johnson during the previous election believed that party members had made the wrong decision.
Many people said that they would now vote for Labour or another party other than the Conservatives in the next general election, which is concerning for the party.
According to the most recent polls, Labour leads the Conservatives by 28 points, with Sir Keir Starmer’s party now holding a 51% to 23% vote share.
Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, who both competed for the party’s leadership in the summer, are allegedly being prepared by senior Tories to take over No. 10 if the current Prime Minister is ousted.
Last night, the Prime Minister and her closest advisers were debating whether to drop key provisions of last month’s emergency mini-Budget, such as her signature promise to drop a £18 billion increase in corporate tax.
The Chancellor said yesterday when asked if another embarrassing U-turn was possible: “Let’s see.”
It happens as frantic Tory MPs debate hysterically whether to attempt to oust Miss Truss, who has just been premier for a month, and who may take her place.
“It’s all about the announcement on October 31 now,” a former cabinet minister said. “She has days to turn things around, that’s all.”
She will probably need to fire Kwasi in addition to having to rescind the mini-Budget. If she is unable to win back the markets’ trust, even that may not be sufficient.
She still seems to be in denial about how awful things are, which is worrying.
Although a Downing Street insider conceded that the PM is in “choppy” seas that “could well grow choppier,” they claimed that “there is a path through.”
This news coincides with reports that party elites are considering replacing Miss Truss with a unity ticket consisting of Mr. Sunak and Miss Mordaunt, who finished second and third in the leadership race.
According to The Times, 20 to 30 senior MPs, including former ministers, are trying to assemble a “council of elders” to advise the PM to go.
‘Rishi’s people, Penny’s people, and the sane Truss supporters who see that she’s a mess need to meet down together and find out who the unity candidate is,’ one MP added.
Either Penny becomes prime minister and Rishi serves as chancellor, or Penny becomes prime minister and Rishi serves as his deputy and foreign secretary.
One of the two would be chosen and enter No. 10 in a coronation-style ceremony in order to prevent additional “blue on blue” assaults.
A change in leadership, however, would be a disastrously awful idea politically and economically, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC.
Mrs. Dorries pleaded with feuding MPs to support the PM in a tweet.
She stated: “MPs are circulating a buffet of names about who should succeed Truss as PM, but they are not considering the reality that they cannot impose another prime minister on the British people who the people have not elected. A very impossible situation.
Lord Lamont, a former Tory chancellor, said that it would be “farcical” for Tory MPs to act against Miss Truss so soon after her election.
The Chancellor, who is scheduled to return from Washington today, will discuss the future of the tax-cutting measures in the emergency mini-Budget with the Prime Minister and other senior ministers over the weekend.
On October 31, Mr. Kwarteng is scheduled to present the government’s “medium-term fiscal plan,” in which he is anticipated to outline strategies for repairing Britain’s ailing public finances.
A significant increase in interest rates is expected to be announced by the Bank of England three days later, which will be painful for millions of homeowners.
In order to assist close a gap in the public finances anticipated by some analysts to surpass £60 billion, Miss Truss has ruled out significant cutbacks in government expenditure.
Following a backbench Tory uprising, the Chancellor was already forced to drop his intention to eliminate the 45p top tax rate.
The PM’s intention to back away from the company tax vow, which was a key part of her campaign for the leadership, was the subject of widespread rumors in Westminster yesterday.
Priti Patel, a former home secretary, said this night that, given the poor market response, a U-turn on company tax was all but certain.
Miss Truss cannot be formally challenged for the leadership of the Tory party until September of the following year.
But top Tories are already considering how to get rid of her if things become worse.
The regulations might change at any moment, one person said. She will be forced to resign if she loses the parliamentary party’s confidence and is unable to win it back. It will undoubtedly seem horrible. However, it is our responsibility to prevent the kind of chaos that would be harmful in the long run.
In the three weeks following the mini-Budget, the PM’s approval ratings have dropped by nearly half to only 9%.
She is reportedly as popular as Prince Andrew, according to a People Polling study for GB News.