Time for Truss: Why I’m backing Liz for Leader

In the summer of 2019, I sat in a Conservative club listening to two men pitch themselves for the highest political office in our country. The party had just sustained its worst ever result in its history, was paralysed in parliament and the country teetered on the edge of a full-blown constitutional crisis.

Yet, there was a palpable sense of hope.  A leadership shakeup seemed to offer a chance to change. A chance to change the approach, the vision and the fortunes of the party and, more importantly, the nation.

We have witnessed how spectacularly that journey proceeded. Boris Johnson successfully broke the Brexit deadlock, led the party to one of its best ever results, before abandoning all he had hitherto claimed to stand for in acquiescing to the biggest domestic political mistake of this century -lockdowns. In its implementation, he thus sacrificed conservative principles on the altar of the NHS while failing to capitalise upon the parliamentary majority and dishonouring the office he held.

Boris Johnson failed his potential. The chance to change crashed and burned.

The leadership election before us now presents a second chance. An unlikely chance we do not deserve; an invaluable opportunity to not just get back on track but to finally deliver on our principles - for the betterment of this country and her people.

The stakes could not be higher. For the second time in just five years, the party has lost its way, adrift on a stagnant sea. We simply cannot get this wrong. If we do, then we, and the conservative principles we stand for, will face oblivion at the next election, irrelevance for a generation and an impotence to resolve the structural issues facing our country. 

I fear we are sleepwalking into choosing a leader based on what we want them to be, and not what they are. It’s high time for us to wake up to the reality that, unless we have a Prime Minister capable of sticking to their principles and delivering change, there is no point to remaining in government. 

Liz Truss is a politician known, respected (and sometimes feared) for getting things done. Unlike Mordaunt, she’s not always been preening herself for a leadership election to the cost of her ministerial duties and hence the country’s progress. She’s a politician who is selling the same vision as she was when I first met her in 2018. A vision of pure and simple conservative instincts assembled into a coherent strategy for government. Over 12 years of government, it would appear those instincts have been held true to, although an obvious sense of loyalty means that Truss has accepted collective decisions (read: mistakes), a sign of maturity and an appreciation of the bigger picture. Given the ongoing revelations, claims and counterclaims about gender self-identification, for example, other leading candidates have struggled to maintain positions in the changing winds of power, popularity and expedience.

Over the last three years, the economic policy of the government has drifted leftward. Where once we would have boasted of returning money, power and license to people, we now preside over the largest tax burden in history. While I don’t know about my fellow party members and supporters, I certainly didn’t join the party to confiscate more of other people’s money, and not at a time of rocketing inflation. Liz Truss has also been a persistent critic on the consensus in Downing Street. Whether one cites the uncontested reports that she led cabinet opposition to the National Insurance tax grab, or the speculation that her promotion to Foreign Secretary was to move her away from economic affairs, there is little doubt that Liz Truss will restore the party’s economic competence and reputation for low taxes.

As expected, the Foreign Secretary’s tax plans have been attacked as inflationary. This is a simplistic approach, that fails to account for the real causes of inflation, the fact that the money for tax cuts is still ‘in the system’ and that without growth, we’ll soon return to 1970’s-esque stagflation. The fact that letting people keep more of their money, deregulation and other supply-side reform or indeed keeping our word with the British people, is now a contentious issue is a very sad inditement of the drift within the Conservative Party.

When it comes to the economy, we surely cannot choose a candidate who has created the highest tax burden for over 70 years and only now talks of deregulation nor can we trust a candidate who refuses to outline any detailed plans and has never held an economic portfolio.

As for foreign affairs, the choice is equally clear. Whereas Sunak’s main achievement on the global stage was discussions of harmonising corporation tax, Truss has forged trade deals and military alliances, led on Ukraine and been thoroughly robust in responding to emerging threats whilst projecting a compelling vision of global Britain. Mordaunt, meanwhile, was missing in action from the Department of International Trade. On Brexit, Truss has not only accepted the result, but done as much as anybody else to deliver on the will of the people, resolve the Northern Ireland protocol and finally capitalise on the opportunities Brexit has presented.

An unlikely second chance to get this right, another chance for change: High time for Truss.