REVEALED: SECRET PLOT TO OUST PM

100 Tory MPs back id for unity candidate to take helm at No.10. Sacked chancellor ‘bounced’ into tax cuts by Liz Truss, say allies

- David Williamson

REBEL Tories are plotting to topple Liz Truss and replace her with a “unity team” within weeks, the Sunday Express can reveal.

Several ex-ministers have hatched a plan to by-pass the party rulebook and stage a “clean and swift” coup against the PM and her Cabinet.

Ringleaders claim about 100 MPs have backed their blueprint to bring her “catastrophic” stint in Number 10 to an end and appoint her successor without a contest. One mutineer said last night: “We want to do what is right for the party and the country, and we aren’t hanging around.”

It also emerged that sacked chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had actually argued against Ms Truss’s plan to cut taxes for the wealthiest in the miniBudget. His allies claim it was forced on him by the PM after he suggested delaying it to avoid “doing too much at once”. But she is said to have told him: “No, let’s go for it.”

With Ms Truss left isolated, the rebels plan to deliver letters from up to half of all MPs telling her the game is up – with their “chosen one” waiting in the wings.

A former Truss ally conceded: “There’s nothing we can do to save her now. She faces a slow, humiliating demise. I’ve come to the conclusion it would be more humane to put her out of her misery quickly.”

A former Cabinet minister involved in the talks added: “Liz and her team are culpable of the biggest political catastrophe in modern times. She has to go – and her entire Cabinet with her.”

Tory grandees hatched the plot after concluding that without urgent action they face a painful two-year run-up to a certain general election defeat.