TORIES descended into all out war today as a senior Cabinet Minister accused rebels of orchestrating a “coup” against Liz Truss’ tax plans.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman blasted colleagues who successfully forced the PM to u-turn on her decision to abolish the 45p top rate.
Meanwhile Conservative MPs clashed on how much benefits should go up by next year.
Speaking at the party’s Birmingham conference, Ms Braverman said she was “disappointed” the PM had abandoned her bid to scrap the top rate of income tax.
Voicing support for the original policy, she said: “I am disappointed that members of our party staged a coup and undermined the PM in an unprofessional way.”
She was quickly supported by Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke, who said: “Suella speaks a lot of good sense, as usual.”
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But a slew of Tory MPs attacked her comments. Former pensions Minister Guy Opperman said: “Suella is 110 per cent wrong on this”.
And backbencher Steve Double piled in: “Doing what we believe to be right for our constituents is not 'a coup' or unprofessional.
“It’s called doing our job as backbench MPs. If this is the approach the Cabinet take we're in for a bumpy time.”
In a round of interviews Ms Truss insisted she had rowed back from her tax plan after “listening” to colleagues’ concerns.
The defiant PM vowed to “win hearts and minds” as she pressed on with implementing the rest of her agenda.
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But the Tory feud opened as ministers began taking different stances to benefits.
Ms Truss is considers only hiking Universal Credit to match earnings rather than inflation.
Appearing to back the move, supportive Ms Braverman said: “The benefit-street culture is a feature of modern Britain.”
But in a serious split her Cabinet colleague Penny Mordaunt said it “makes sense” to uprate with prices.
In an interview with TalkTV this afternoon the PM hinted her government could rip up all its ideas and go back to the drawing board.
She said: “We have made certain commitments, but we are going to have to look at things differently as we go forward.
“We’re in a very very difficult international situation.”
Less than two hours later Nadine Dorries took to Twitter to lambast the very suggestion.
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The former Culture Secretary, who backed Ms Truss for Tory leader, blasted: “We have no mandate from the people to do this.
“The Conservative government was elected on basis of a manifesto – it’s how democracy works.
“People voted in 2019 on the policy promises we made and for Boris.”
Ms Dorries then went on to demand the PM calls an early general election if she wants to write her own policy rules.
Observing the conference row, former Brexit Minister Lord Frost hitout at Ms Truss’s team for being “quite inexperienced”.
The Tory darling said it would be right of the PM to “listen, reach out and take advice from people who are supportive and want to avoid getting into unnecessary confrontations”.
Former cabinet ministers Grant Shapps and Michael Gove had lit the rebellion flame on Sunday as they publicly derided Ms Truss for slashing taxes for the richest.
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