Rebel Tory backbencher Johnny Mercer has hit out at “deluded” politicians who think they can lead the nation, accused Liz Truss of telling him “a straightforward lie”, and said he’ll vote against her benefit cuts.
The ex-army commando says he is also considering stepping down as an MP because he fears losing his seat in a Labour landslide.
“This Government has been going for 28 days and given a 33-point poll lead to the Labour Party. I don’t think I need to say any more than that,” he said.
“I think we’re in a really, really difficult space at the moment, and making some pretty catastrophic errors we’re going to pay very heavily for.”
He said one example was the Tory infighting over linking benefits to inflation, a promise made by Boris Johnson and reneged on by Ms Truss without consulting voters.
“I have actually lived on benefits before I was an MP, and I was working on building sites. It was really tough and I had two young kids. Where are you supposed to get that food, that money from?” he asked.
"A hell of a lot of people using benefits are actually in work, right, so this idea you can just go and work more, whatever, it is for the birds.”
The leadership has threatened to withdraw the whip from any MP who doesn’t back Kwasi Kwarteng's disastrous mini-budget.
But Mr Mercer insisted: “I won’t vote for a budget that doesn’t see an uprating for benefits and Universal Credit in line with inflation, and it’s as simple as that. If that means I’m kicked out of the Tory Party, then fine.”
He was fired as Minister for Veterans' Affairs after she took over, and the role was demoted from Cabinet. An online petition to have the job reinstated has now reached more than 12,000 signatures.
In a wide-ranging Facebook chat with constituents, he promised them he’d “stick in it for as long as I think I can do something for the people of Plymouth and the groups I’m here to represent” and would not cross the floor to join Labour “at the moment” because voters had backed him as a Tory.
But he said Ms Truss had “taken away” all his efforts to improve things for armed forces veterans, and it had a “profound effect” on him and made him question if he wanted to continue.
“I think Liz is a nice person. I’m slightly annoyed that she sort of, yeah, told me a straightforward lie when I asked her if she was going to keep veterans’ care as it was under the last prime minister,” he said.
“She said she was going to do that, very clearly to me on the telephone, and then when it came to it completely did the reverse.
"Veterans is now back as a junior ministerial job in the Ministry of Defence, and it feels like seven years of work down the drain. It’s pretty frustrating and obviously that tainted my view of her slightly.”
He added that Ms Truss didn’t “know what she was doing” and most politicians talked about veterans, but had no idea what it was like to be one.
“The one thing that makes me think about standing for the leadership is the others who put themselves forward. I just think some of them suffer from quite severe delusion, and it’s hard to believe that these people think they could be a good Prime Minister,” he said, in response to a question about whether he'd ever fight for the top job in No10.
“I think some of these candidates are utterly deluded, and that’s the only reason I’d put myself forward, because I think that actually I could do a better job. But I don’t want to, no, and I think you’ve got to really want it, and that’s a problem for me.”
He said that the possibility of “being booted” out of his seat, which was once held by left-wing radical Michael Foot, would be a “tough day” and he did not know if he would stand at the next election.
“I don’t know at the moment, there’s lots of competing factors,” he said.
“It’s an incredible privilege being your MP in Plymouth, and there’s lots to do, but whatever I did achieve has been wiped out by this Prime Minister.
"It’s not enduring, so I haven’t really been successful. All of this has a personal cost… maybe there’s a place for me going forward beyond 2024. I’m reflecting at the moment.”
