LIZ Truss could be out of No 10 by Christmas if she does not extend an olive branch to the other factions in a fractured Conservative Party, MPs say.
Allies of Rishi Sunak – the former chancellor defeated by Truss in the ballot of Tory members in the race to take over as party leader – issued the warning to the new prime minister in the Daily Mail.
Truss’s position as prime minister seems precarious, having managed to win just 57% of the members’ vote against Sunak’s 43% – a smaller margin than had been expected.
Boris Johnson’s victory in the same contest in 2019 was far more decisive, picking up 66% of votes compared to Jeremy Hunt’s 34%. David Cameron managed an even bigger share in 2005, winning 68% of votes to David Davis’s 32%.
Truss also fell short of the total secured by Iain Duncan Smith in 2001, who picked up 61% of votes versus Ken Clarke’s 39%.
The 2022 leadership ballot also saw a turnout of 82.6%, meaning that Truss failed to win a majority of the electorate’s support.
She further seems to lack support among Tory MPs. In the first round of MP voting, held on July 13, Truss won just 50 votes. Sunak had 88, while Penny Mordaunt won 67.
As the race went on Truss managed to take second place, going into the final two with the backing of 113 Tory MPs – 24 fewer than Sunak’s 137 and only narrowly edging out Mordaunt on 105.
Truss is expected to pack her Cabinet with loyalists – including handing close ally Therese Coffey (below) the deputy prime minister and healthy secretary roles.
However, MPs from opposing camps within the party have warned that it would be an act of “political naivety” not to welcome some of the other contenders’ supporters into her Cabinet.
One told the Daily Mail that Truss’s relatively precarious position meant it would be “extraordinary” not to put in her Cabinet “at least a few people who were on the other side”.
“That is political naivety and will come back to bite her very, very quickly – as if she hasn’t got enough problems already,” one Sunak supporter said, with the suggestion that she could face rebellion before Christmas.
MPs told the Mail that Truss had made “no effort” to appease opponents, with one adding: “Given her very weak position, that shows huge misjudgment as to the power of the parliamentary party to take away very quickly the prize that she has just won.”
Writing in the Guardian, Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield, also warned Truss: “The Conservative party is a coalition – with the European Research Group representing one fine tradition and the one nation group representing another. Wise leaders recognise the importance of respecting these different strands.”
He added: “The circular firing squad that characterised the 1995-1997 period of Tory government should not – must not – be replicated.”
Outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson, as well as former prime minister David Cameron and Theresa May, have urged the entire party to get behind Truss as leader.
Johnson said: “I know she has the right plan to tackle the cost of living crisis, unite our party and continue the great work of uniting and levelling up our country. Now is the time for all Conservatives to get behind her 100 per cent.”
