A Tory MP has launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Liz Truss's economic policies, claiming the Government has 'treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra free market experiments'.
Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, called for a 'dramatic reset' after U-turns in Kwasi Kwarteng's so-called mini-budget followed the appointment of a new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. And he said the Government needed to apologise for the financial chaos of recent weeks.
Mr Halfon stopped short of calling on Liz Truss to quit as Prime Minister, but pointed to 'one horror show after another'. And he didn't deny that some of his Tory colleagues were plotting to remove her from Downing Street, saying they were 'unhappy with what is going on' and the party was 'haemorrhaging' at the polls.
Speaking on Sunday on Sky News, Mr Halfon said: "I worry that over the past few weeks, the Government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra, ultra free market experiments. And this is not where the country is. There's been one horror story after another."
Asked if Ms Truss should lead his party into the next election, he said: "At this time, I'm not calling for the Prime Minister to go. I worry about further political instability, but even more economic instability. But things have to improve.
"Because if things don’t change, I just think that perhaps things may not be able to carry on in the way that they have been."
The MP didn't elaborate in detail over what fellow Tory members were saying. But he said: "Of course, colleagues are unhappy with what is going on. We've haemorrhaged in the opinion polls. The public just can't understand what has happened.
"Many of them are frightened about their future and the cost of living. It's inevitable that colleagues are just, we're all talking to see what can be done about it."
Mr Halfon went on to lambast the Government after negative briefings appeared in the Sunday newspapers about former chancellor Sajid Javid, amid suggestions he was considered as a replacement for Kwasi Kwarteng. The Tory MP labelled the comments about his friend 'disgusting'.
He told Sky News: "The briefings that have come out using four-letter words to describe Sajid Javid, I’ve known him since university, he’s a really good man, he was respected. He didn't tank the economy when he was chancellor and if the Prime Minister wants to unite the party and get people around her, then these kind of negative briefings about colleagues have got to stop.
"All it does is bring disharmony to the party when what the Prime Minister should be doing is doing everything possible to bring people together, bring the country together."
Meanwhile Lord Hayward, the Conservative peer and pollster, said it was going to be “very difficult” for Liz Truss to remain as Prime Minister.
Speaking on Sky News, he said: “The likelihood is that the opprobrium will stick with her as the Prime Minister. Under those circumstances, the conversations will take place with Graham Brady as the chairman of the 1922, but at the moment the MPs are throwing ideas all around the place.”
He also predicting that if the next steps fail to reassure the markets, Ms Truss will get the blame. But if they succeed, he said, the new Chancellor will be credited. “If the markets don’t calm down, the blame is going to be put on Liz Truss. If they do calm, the credit will go to Jeremy Hunt."
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