Liz Truss has “half a hope” she can make a comeback and lead the Conservative Party in opposition, friends claim.
According to the Times, the ex-Prime Minister, ousted after just 50 days after a string of disasters, missteps and a mini-budget that threatened to crash the UK economy, thinks she has “lost the battle but this is a long game.”
The ally added that Ms Truss thinks a future leader “would probably have to be someone from the existing intake.”
Ms Truss has been increasingly visible in Parliament in recent days, sparking rumours she’s gearing up for a relaunch of her political career.
Later this month she’ll address a conference of international politicians in Japan, with a “hawkish” speech on China.
And it’s understood she’s written a lengthy column in a national newspaper, to be published this weekend.
Even as she was forced out of Number 10, Ms Truss maintained she had the right ideas all along.
In her final speech before leaving office, she defended her agenda of extreme, unfunded tax cuts, insisting the Government needed to be “bold.”
“It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare,” she said.
“It’s because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
Ms Truss is expected to make a number of media appearances in the coming week, having kept a low profile since becoming the shortest-lived prime minister in history.
The Conservative backbencher will later this month address a conference of international politicians in Japan, with her speech billed as centring on Beijing's threat to Taiwan.
Her allies, including former Cabinet minister Simon Clarke, have recently formed the Conservative Growth Group to push for her tax-cutting agenda.
But her comeback could stoke divisions among Conservative MPs, with many more eager to hastily cut taxes than Mr Sunak and holding a more aggressive stance on China.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a campaign group seeking to co-ordinate international pressure on Beijing, is arranging the event where Ms Truss will speak on February 17.
She is expected to be joined by two other former prime ministers, Australia's Scott Morrison and Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt.
One ally of Ms Truss said the speech will be "hawkish", adding: "She's expected to address Sunak's decision to brand China a strategic competitor rather than a threat."
She had been expected to officially re-designate China as a "threat" in official speak, instead of a "systemic competitor" during her leadership.
In November, Mr Sunak said the "golden era" of UK-Chinese relations was over but described the nation as a "systemic challenge" rather than a threat.
That marked a dialling down of his language, having called it the "biggest-long term threat to Britain" during the summer leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson.
Ms Truss's return to the international stage will follow Mr Johnson's re-mergence, having made visits to Ukraine to visit Volodymyr Zelensky and to the US.
