How the Liz Truss leadership crisis could end in a general election

The Independent on Wednesday launched a petition calling for a new UK general election to be held instead of allowing the Conservative Party to oust its new prime minister Liz Truss and impose a fourth prime minister on the country in three years.

Ms Truss was only selected as the party’s new leader on 6 September after a prolonged summer leadership campaign that saw her eventually beat former chancellor Rishi Sunak to the top job but has since endured the most nightmarish start to a premiership in living memory.

The first two weeks of Ms Truss’s reign were dominated by the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the period of national mourning that followed and her state funeral before the chaos began in earnest when her then-chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced his “mini-Budget” to Parliament on 23 September.

The Truss-Kwarteng programme of uncosted tax cuts and heavy borrowing proved so unpopular that it spooked global financial markets, sending the value of the pound plummeting and forcing the Bank of England to launch an emergency £65bn rescue mission to buy up government debt to support ailing pension funds, provoking stern warnings from economists and soon the IMF itself.

The disaster sent the Conservatives’ popularity tumbling on the polls, putting them on course for a landslide election defeat, necessitated a number of embarrassing policy U-turns from Ms Truss and entirely vindicated Mr Sunak’s objections to the “fairy tale” economics she had outlined over the course of the summer as part of her leadership campaign.

Matters finally came to a head last Friday when Ms Truss was forced to recall Mr Kwarteng from a meeting with the IMF in Washington, DC, prematurely, flying him back to the UK in order to be sacked and take the fall for the radical but deeply misguided economic project they had embarked upon “in lockstep” together.

He was immediately replaced by former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who in turn swiftly tore up much of what remained of the ill-starred mini-Budget and, with it, the final few shreds of Ms Truss’s credibility.

The PM now finds herself a lame duck leader after just six weeks in Downing Street, unelected by the British public (she was chosen by around 180,000 Conservative Party members, without even the full support of her own MPs) and stripped of the economic mission she had promised to deliver.

As her Westminster colleagues plot to replace her, Ms Truss’s downfall appears assured and only delayed for now by her fractured and factionalised party’s failure to agree on a unity candidate who might replace her, be that Mr Hunt, Mr Sunak, Penny Mordaunt or even the revenant Boris Johnson.

While the opposition Labour and Liberal Democrats have already called for an election rather than endure the imposition of yet another unelected Tory PM and a public petition on the subject has already reached Parliament, the road to securing one is far from smooth.

The UK is not due to hold another until 17 December 2024 and Ms Truss, or her successor, is not bound to call one before that date – and will be disinclined to, given the party’s horrific current polling.

Nevertheless, it could well come to pass, such is the ceaseless turbulence of our present moment. Here are several scenarios that could play out resulting in a general election.

Liz Truss is replaced and her successor immediately calls one

If the current PM were to be removed by her colleagues, perhaps by the 1922 Committee agreeing to change its rules to remove the one-year grace period that currently protects her to enable an early vote of no-confidence, her successor might then call an election in the hope of winning a fresh mandate from the public to continue governing.

They would certainly face intense pressure to do so should that happen.

However, such a decision would be more likely to result in total wipeout for the Tories, a Labour landslide and perhaps years in the political wilderness, if current polling is to be believed, so shattered is the Tories’ reputation for fiscal responsibility at this juncture.

Truss is ousted but no successor can be found

If the above mechanism were to come into play but the Conservative parliamentary party could not agree on a consensus candidate or face another drawn out leadership crisis of the sort we endured in July and August, wasting more time in a period of national crisis, sky-high inflation and rocketing costs, a state of stasis could ensue.

The UK is required to have a PM at all times but, if the governing party were unable to find one, an election would become a matter of necessity.

Truss surrenders and calls one herself

On a personal level, many voters would understand if Ms Truss decided she simply could not endure any further humiliation and stepped down voluntarily after a start to her time in No 10 that has been nothing short of a waking nightmare.

Should she do so, she would be required to go to King Charles III to seek a dissolution of Parliament.

Even then, he could refuse if it was clear that a majority of Tory MPs did not agree with her decision and/or an obvious successor was lined up to take her place.

Her government loses a confidence motion

The new Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act dictates that an election can be called via a confidence vote, which the government could table as a referendum on its competence or the opposition could propose in the belief that it could secure a majority opinion against.

Despite their present travails, the Conservatives still hold a parliamentary majority of 71 from Mr Johnson’s December 2019 landslide victory, so it would require a significant revolt from the ruling party’s own representatives to vote against their own side and entrust their future to the public.

Alternatively, Ms Truss could find herself in trouble if a confidence vote were to be held on what remains of her economic programme and she were to lose it.

Although that would not automatically force her out and necessitate an election, the pressure that would inevitably result from such an eventuality could become irresistible.

What seems most improbable of all at this stage is that Liz Truss somehow manages to steady the ship and cling onto power for another 50 months but, should she pull that off, it would then be December 2024 and a fresh general election would be due anyway.