DUP boss says Liz Truss is facing a fight to ‘regain authority’ amid Tory turmoil

She sacked chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – who was basically her most senior minister, and someone who had supported her leadership bid from the outset –and ditched one of his key tax-cutting measures as she attempted to shore up her faltering premiership.

Speaking to the News Letter last night, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said she is “going to have to work hard now to regain her authority”.

But, he added, “for the time being” she is the Prime Minister, and she “remains strongly committed to the NI Protocol Bill”.

The ousting of Kwarteng comes following three weeks of turmoil on the financial markets in the wake of his so-called “mini-budget”, when he unveiled some £43 billion in tax cuts.

Ms Truss has now replaced Mr Kwarteng with Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign secretary who backed her rival Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership contest.

While his appointment was welcomed by some Tory MPs as “an experienced pair of hands”, some questioned why Mr Kwarteng was the one who had to go, since he was pursuing policies which Ms Truss herself had advocated in her leadership campaign.

At a hastily arranged news conference in Downing Street, Ms Truss dismissed calls for her resignation, saying she is “absolutely determined to see through what I have promised”.

As had been widely predicted, she said that a proposed rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% – something which Mr Kwarteng had dropped – has now been re-instated.

“It is clear that parts of our mini-budget went further and faster than markets were expecting, so the way we are delivering our mission right now has to change,” Ms Truss said.

“We will do whatever is necessary to ensure debt is falling as a share of the economy in the medium term.”

A snap poll by YouGov revealing that 49% of voters said that Ms Truss was right to sack her chancellor.

Publicly too, Cabinet ministers tweeted support for Ms Truss and her new chancellor.

But the reaction from party grandees was withering, with former leader Lord Hague warning that Ms Truss’s premiership “hangs by a thread”.

“It’s been a catastrophic episode,” he told Times Radio.

Conservative former chancellor Lord Hammond said the events of the past weeks had wrecked the party’s reputation for fiscal discipline, leaving her growth agenda “in tatters”.

He said Ms Truss will survive in Number 10 only because Tory MPs do not want a general election they know they will lose.

He told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One programme: “I’m afraid we’ve thrown away years and years of painstaking work to build and maintain a reputation as a party of fiscal discipline and competence in government.”

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “The issue is that credibility has been lost.”

Sir Jeffrey told the News Letter he “recognised immediately there were going to be problems" as soon as the “mini-budget” had been announced.

He said: “The talk at Westminster is the PM has been undermined by recent events, and I think she's going to have to work hard now to regain her authority…

"I think this autumn and winter is going to be very challenging for the Prime Minister.

"I don't see at the moent any precipitative move against her, but it remains to be seen whether what she's announced today will be enough in the longer term to persuade her party that she's the best person to lead them into the next general election.

We work well with Liz Truss, she's someone who remains strongly committed to the NI Protocol Bill and resolving the issues related to the protocol.

"For the time being, she's the Prime MInister, and we'll continue to work with her.”

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