Tory MPs tell Truss: sack Kwarteng or face mutiny
Liz Truss is facing growing pressure from jittery Conservative MPs to sack Kwasi Kwarteng or face a mutiny after the Bank of England’s emergency intervention to address the turmoil in the financial markets.
The move prompted comparisons to 1992’s Black Wednesday, when the UK was ignominiously ejected from the European exchange rate mechanism.
Tory MPs expressed disbelief at how sterling had slumped after the government’s mini-budget sparked market turbulence, compounded by the chancellor’s subsequent remarks, at a time when households across the country were already struggling with the cost of living. They said Kwarteng would have to resign for the party to survive the financial crisis, as they urged the prime minister to reverse her plan to scrap the top 45p tax rate, which they said had been received badly in their constituencies.
Simon Hoare, the Tory MP for North Dorset, tweeted: “In the words of Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday: ‘Today has been a very difficult day’. These are not circumstances beyond the control of govt/Treasury. They were authored there. This inept madness cannot go on.”
Yet Downing Street insisted the prime minister was standing by her chancellor. A spokesperson told the Guardian: “The PM and the chancellor are working on the supply-side reforms needed to grow the economy, which will be announced in the coming weeks.”
Neither Kwarteng nor Truss was prepared to comment publicly to calm the markets and reassure the public. Instead, they sent out the Treasury financial secretary, Andrew Griffith, who argued that “all major economies” were experiencing the same volatility as the UK as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“That’s impacting every major economy,” he told Sky News. “[In] every major economy
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