October 2022 United Kingdom Government Crisis

From Wikipedia

In September and October 2022, the government of the United Kingdom, led by the Conservative party and the newly-appointed prime minister Liz Truss, faced a credibility crisis.

The crisis began following the 23 September 2022 United Kingdom mini-budget, which was received negatively by the world financial markets. It ultimately led to the dismissal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, on 14 October, and his replacement by Jeremy Hunt. In the following days Truss came under increasing pressure to reverse further elements of the mini-budget to satisfy the markets, and by 17 October five Conservative Members of Parliament had called for her resignation.

On 19 October Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, resigned over a technical breach of the Ministerial Code, following a disagreement with Truss over immigration reform. Braverman's resignation letter was highly critical of Truss. That evening MPs voted on a Labour Party motion to create time to debate a ban on fracking in the United Kingdom, which was opposed by the government. The vote caused confusion among Conservative MPs who were not clear whether it was being treated as a confidence vote, or whether the Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip had resigned. There were also allegations that some of their colleagues had been manhandled in the voting lobby.

On 20 October Truss announced that she would resign, but remain in office until the Conservative Party had chosen her successor. The leadership election is expected to conclude on 28 October. Truss was in office for 45 days before she announced her resignation, and her expected departure date will make her term the shortest overall of any prime minister in UK history.

Background

Following Boris Johnson's announcement of his intention to resign as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 7 July, Liz Truss won the subsequent Conservative party leadership election and became Prime Minister on 6 September.  On 23 September, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng delivered a financial statement widely referred to as the mini-budget, which prompted significant negative market reaction – including the pound falling to a record low against the US dollar and a sharp increase in the cost of government borrowing.  This resulted in Truss dismissing Kwarteng as Chancellor on 14 October and appointing Jeremy Hunt as his replacement, who reversed most of the measures in the mini-budget.

According to The Daily Telegraph, there were at least five Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) calling for the resignation of Liz Truss by 17 October. They were Crispin Blunt, Andrew Bridgen, Angela Richardson, Charles Walker and Jamie Wallis.  In an interview with the BBC's Chris Mason that evening, Truss said she was "sorry for the mistakes that have been made" but remained "committed to the vision". She also said she would lead the Conservatives into the next general election.  On 18 October, Lord Frost had also called for the Prime Minister to resign.

On 17 and 20 October, Truss held meetings with Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee.  The meeting on 17 October was stated to have caused Truss to miss an urgent Prime Minister's Questions on the afternoon that same day requested by opposition leader Keir Starmer and granted by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, with Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, answering on Truss's behalf.  Truss's absence drew criticism from a number of MPs, including Starmer, although Truss later made a brief appearance in the House.

Resignations and Dismissals

Kwasi Kwarteng was dismissed as Chancellor of the Exchequer on 14 October after 38 days in post, and was succeeded by Jeremy Hunt.  Chris Philp was also replaced by Edward Argar as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

On 19 October, Suella Braverman resigned as Home Secretary, subsequently being replaced by Grant Shapps.

On 20 October, Truss announced her intention to resign as Prime Minister.

Parliament

On 19 October 2022, the Labour Party tabled a motion to introduce a bill to ban fracking in the United Kingdom.  As the motion would have allowed the Opposition to control the Order Paper, Conservative MPs were instructed by their party's whips office to vote against the motion on a three-line whip, and that it would be treated as a confidence motion.

Throughout the course of the day, 10 Downing Street became increasingly concerned about the potential size of the rebellion among Conservative MPs, and informed Climate Minister that the vote would no longer be treated as a matter of confidence, which he subsequently relayed to the House of Commons.  The whips office were not consulted on the change in positioning, resulting in confusion and disarray among Conservative MPs.

During the vote, Chief Whip Wendy Morton and Deputy Chief Whip Craig Whittaker submitted their resignations to Prime Minister Liz Truss, which were ultimately withdrawn following hours-length negotiations and a late statement confirming the Government would treat the vote as a matter of confidence.

An MP described the vote as "chaos" with claims, denied by cabinet ministers, that Conservative whips had manhandled and bullied backbenchers into voting negatively.  Labour MP Chris Bryant made claims on Sky News saying that he saw MPs "physically manhandled through the voting lobby" naming Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Thérèse Coffey, along with Jacob Rees-Mogg, as those he saw in the "group". Later that evening, the House's speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, announced that he had asked the Serjeant at Arms and other parliamentary officials to investigate the allegations made about the incident.

The motion was ultimately opposed, with a government majority of 96 votes.

Reaction

Opinion Polls

A YouGov survey of Conservative Party members published on 18 October reported that a majority of them wanted Truss to resign, with their favoured front runners for her replacement being Boris Johnson as most popular, followed in order by Ben Wallace, Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Kemi Badenoch, Jeremy Hunt and Suella Braverman.

Bookmakers

As of mid-October, bookmakers were taking odds for the date of Truss's resignation. Bookmakers placed Sunak first in their list of likely Conservative prime ministerial successors, followed in order by Hunt, Mordaunt, Wallace and Johnson.

Lettuce Analogies

On 11 October, The Economist published an article criticising Truss, in which they commented that she had seven days in control of the economy. They wrote: "That is roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce."  On 14 October, tabloid newspaper the Daily Star began a live stream on YouTube of a lettuce dressed as Truss to see if it would wilt before the Prime Minister resigned, which it did not.  On 19 October, after Braverman's resignation, the lettuce was filmed with a plate of tofu to mock Braverman, who the previous day had attacked climate-protest groups including Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil by describing them as "tofu-eating wokerati".  In an interview with Sky News, Labour MP Chris Bryant attacked the government by saying: "We don't have a government. You might as well have, I mean, the lettuce might as well be running the country, or the tofu."

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2022_United_Kingdom_government_crisis