Liz Truss risks handing Labour a landslide victory if she continues “lurching to the right” and pursuing “cruel” benefit cuts, an ally of Boris Johnson has warned.
Former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries fired off a fresh attack against Ms Truss as Conservative infighting plunged to new depths following the party’s chaos-ridden conference in Birmingham.
Right-winger Ms Dorries, who backed Ms Truss to be leader, said the Prime Minister had made some “big mistakes” in her first weeks in office – and risked “wipeout” at the polls.
Mr Johnson’s ex-spin chief Lee Cain also attacked Ms Truss for making a “monumental error” by dropping elections strategist Isaac Levido, who masterminded the Tory 2019 election campaign.
It comes after the PM’s calamitous mini-Budget spooked markets and her own MPs, plunging the Tories into open warfare, with members of the Cabinet publicly tearing lumps out of each other.
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PA)
The embattled premier used her keynote speech to heap blame on an “anti-growth coalition” of opposition MPs, trade unions, think tanks and environmentalists but her rant failed to steady the ship.
Tory rebels who successfully put pressure on Ms Truss to ditch her plan to abolish the 45p top rate of income tax are now locked in a fresh battle to push the PM to uprate benefits in line with inflation – as Boris Johnson promised.
Ms Dorries has become increasingly outspoken over the PM’s attempts to junk Mr Johnson’s policy programme, accusing her of lacking a mandate for the changes.
She told The Times: “I understand that we need to rocket-booster growth, but you don’t do that by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
“You don’t win elections by lurching to the right and deserting the centre ground for Keir Starmer to place his flag on.
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Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)
“If we continue down this path, we absolutely will be facing a Stephen Harper-type wipeout. I’m sure she’s listened and will stop and rethink.”
On benefits, she said Mr Johnson was clear that benefits should rise with inflation.
She added: “If it rises in line with wages that will mean a real-term cut for millions of people at a time when global costs are rising due to a pandemic and Putin’s war.
“It would be cruel, unjust and fundamentally unconservative.”
Despite her attacks, she said people should “give Liz some space”.
“She is very aware she has made some big mistakes over the past few weeks,” she said.
“It wasn’t her mistake that Conservative MPs removed Boris Johnson. But to remove his policies as well is a mistake.
“That was our mandate, our deal with the voters. Removing a prime minister and the policies people voted for less than three years ago is a troubling precedent to set in a democracy.”
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Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The ferocity of her attacks have raised eyebrows among Ms Truss’s supporters, after she backed the PM in the leadership contest over the summer.
“I’m not certain we can take her too seriously on this front, she has allowed her personal loyalty to Boris to overshadow everything else,” one backbench MP told The Telegraph.
Despite near-unprecedented levels of acrimony, Tory chairman Jake Berry claimed the party had had a “positive” conference.
He told LBC: “We had a good positive conference. I mean, it’s my first one as chairman, so I can’t reflect on being chairman at any other.
“But if you talk to delegates there, I think everyone had a good time, people were safe, people enjoyed the policy debates that we had.”
He said he did not “understand” or “agree with” some of Ms Dorries’ comments.
He said: “I must admit (I am) quite good friends with Nadine and I think she’s a very fine individual and a very fine Conservative, but quite a lot of what we have done hasn’t been just about cutting people’s taxes – though of course people are getting the cut in income tax.
“Quite a lot of it is, you know, action on energy bills. I’m not sure that Nadine Dorries would like to see, you know, energy bills go up to £6,000 per household because of the action we have taken. They will now on average be £2,500.”