"Come out of the storm."

Already weakened after only a month in power, British Prime Minister Liz Truss tried to regain the upper hand on Wednesday October 5, on the last day of a chaotic Conservative Party congress, undermined by internal dissension over the policy to be followed to exit the United Kingdom of the crisis. 

"In these difficult times, we must act. I am determined to move the United Kingdom forward to get us out of the storm", launched Liz Truss, in a speech of just over half an hour before elected officials and activists of her party, in which she made no announcement. 

Liz Truss defends her budget 

With the desire to renew a conservative power at the head of the country for twelve years, the Prime Minister affirmed that she wanted to "end the cycle of weak growth" and hammered home her objective of "growing the British economy".

"The status quo is not an option," she insisted. 

Trying to silence those who, even in her ranks, accuse her of already being offside after barely a month in power, she again insisted on her priorities: lowering taxes, improving the health service and the fight against illegal immigration.   

We are the only party with a clear plan to get Britain moving.



We are the only party with the determination to deliver.



Together, we can unleash the full potential of our great country.



That is how we will build a new Britain for a new era.https://t.co/La6VP8gZV9

— Liz Truss (@trussliz) October 5, 2022

Briefly interrupted by activists from the NGO Greenpeace protesting against the end of the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing decided by her government, Liz Truss also reaffirmed at length the support of the United Kingdom to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The Prime Minister also once again defended her "responsible" budgetary approach, while her "mini-budget" presented on September 23 to deal with the cost of living crisis drew a host of criticism for her cuts to taxes financed by debt, and caused the pound sterling to fall. 

Pressure from all sides 

Under pressure from its own majority, the government gave up on Monday to abolish the highest tax bracket, a measure that crystallized the opposition because it benefited the richest taxpayers. 

This about-face carried by the Minister of Finance, Kwasi Kwarteng, weakened the Prime Minister, who defended herself, assuring that "there is no shame for a leader to listen". 

Will her speech before Congress be enough to reassert her authority, when Interior Minister Suella Braverman on Tuesday accused conservatives who openly criticized Liz Truss of having launched a putsch against her?  

Much is at stake as former transport minister Grant Shapps, who backed ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak against Liz Truss in the Downing Street race, on Tuesday spoke of the danger of a vote of distrust of conservative parliamentarians. 

"I don't think Conservative members of parliament, if they see the polls continue like this, will sit idly by," he warned. 

Especially since a number of mined files are still awaiting the government and could fuel the revolt, such as the lifting of the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing or the removal of the maximum tax bracket for the richest, which Liz Truss refused to give up definitively, after having excluded it from its "mini-budget". 

A reinvigorated opposition 

But the revolt rumbles especially on the future revaluation of social benefits, about which the new government does not consider itself bound by the commitment made by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to increase them to the height of inflation. 

The warning came in particular from the secretary of state responsible for relations with parliament, Penny Mordaunt, a former rival of Liz Truss in the race for Downing Street. 

And several other voices were raised within the majority to remind Liz Truss not to stray too far from Boris Johnson's program, which in December 2019 had earned the Conservatives an unprecedented triumph at the ballot box since Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990). 

The next elections are expected in less than two years and the Labor opposition, under the impetus of its leader Keir Starmer, more centrist than his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, emerged reinvigorated from its congress at the end of September, when 39% of Britons believe now that the Conservatives are leaning far right, up 12 points in two months, according to a YouGov poll released on Tuesday.  

Another poll recently gave Labor 33 points ahead of the Conservatives, a gap not seen since the late 1990s and the coming to power of Tony Blair (1997-2007). 

With AFP

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