Conservative MPs have started to publicly call for Liz Truss to resign after just six weeks as prime minister following the economic turmoil in the wake of the mini-budget.
Crispin Blunt, former chair of the foreign affairs select committee, was the first Tory MP to put his head above the parapet since Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor on Friday.
He told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show: “I think the game is up and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed.”
Mr Blunt later told Sky News it was “blindingly obvious” that Ms Truss had to go and backed former chancellor Rishi Sunak to replace her.
“The principal emotions of people watching her, doing her best to present, is some combination of pity, contempt or anger,” he said.
“I’m afraid it just won’t wash and we need to make a change.”
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen also called for Ms Truss to quit as PM, telling the Telegraph that his party “cannot carry on like this” and adding: “Our country, its people and our party deserve better.”
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Jamie Wallis tweeted: “In recent weeks, I have watched as the government has undermined Britain’s economic credibility and fractured our party irreparably. Enough is enough.
“I have written to the prime minister to ask her to stand down as she no longer holds the confidence of this country.”
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Could Tory Party change rules to oust Truss?
Asked how the party would get rid of Ms Truss, Mr Blunt, who is standing down at the next election, said: “If there is such a weight of opinion in the parliamentary party that we have to have a change, then it will be effected.”
He later added: “If the issue does have to be forced, a way can be found to force it.”
Under current Conservative Party rules, a confidence vote in a leader cannot take place until they have been in power for at least a year, so she is theoretically safe until next September.
However, there has been talk among MPs of the powerful 1922 backbench committee of Tory MPs of changing the rules to reduce that buffer period.
If enough MPs submit no confidence letters in the PM, then the 1922 executive may have little choice but to change them.
The committee’s treasurer, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, told Sky News the rules would only be changed if “an overwhelming majority of the party wish us to do that”.
If the committee was satisfied the conditions had been met “then they would agree to change the rules”, he said.
He added, however: “I think we’re a long way off that at the moment.”
Truss ‘unlikely to be in No 10 at Christmas’
Andrew Mitchell, who ran new chancellor Jeremy Hunt‘s leadership campaign, told the BBC if Ms Truss “cannot do the job, I’m afraid that she will go”.
Former Chancellor George Osborne said Ms Truss is unlikely to still be in Downing Street by Christmas.
He called her a “PINO – prime minister in name only” and said Ms Truss is “hiding in Number 10” as pressure mounts.
Asked if she can survive, he told the Andrew Neil Show: “Probably not.”
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How could Liz Truss be removed as PM?
Mark Garnier, Conservative MP for Wyre Forest, questioned Ms Truss’s position but stayed clear of outright calling for her to go.
He said those who agree with her appointing Mr Hunt as chancellor are split into two camps – those who believe MPs should give Ms Truss time, and those who want to “rip the plaster off”.
“I think power is a very fickle thing, and I think Liz Truss is in office but is not in power,” he told BBC Politics Midlands.
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Tory grandee and pollster Lord Hayward told Sky News it is going to be “very difficult” for Ms Truss to remain as PM after the past few weeks and a new chancellor after just 38 days.
On Sunday morning, both Mr Hunt and Andrew Griffith, financial secretary to the Treasury, said they think Ms Truss will remain as they showed their loyalty to the PM.
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