“Every time a change is forced, it causes a disturbance.” British Prime Minister Liz Truss has been trying to convince Conservative Party affiliates, gathered in Birmingham for their annual congress, on Wednesday that she knows what she has, after nearly two weeks of turbulence in which markets have collapsed. the pound, and an internal mutiny within his own party in the face of tax cuts for the richest, cast doubt on its survival on Downing Street. “Not everyone will support this change, but everyone will benefit from its fruits: economic growth and a better future,” he promised members of the formation who have sunk in almost irreversible pessimism in recent days.

The prime minister took to the stage to the beat of the song move up, who brought success in the nineties to the British group M People. “I go up, you go. No one can stop me”.

It was less than 10 minutes of stiff and eerie speeches, which barely drew applause from those gathered, when two female Greenpeace activists infiltrated the public starting to shout at the prime minister. “Who has chosen fracking [fractura hidráulica para la explotación de hidrocarburos]?” They chanted while holding up banners that read: “Who voted for this?” The assistants, and the security team, had been dragged away, and with courtesy, the two activists, were silenced with boos and applause for Truss.

Not pre-designed, the effect could be better. Nothing is more mobilizing Tories rather than the feeling of being them against the whole world. The prime minister, with a forced smile, but sufficient reflexes, used the incident to introduce a slogan he intended to salvage his troubled mandate: to fight the so-called “anti-growth coalition”. Like his predecessor, Boris Johnson, Truss wanted to stick to a populist message against the elite, seeking unity and support from a Conservative Party fragmented by his controversial economic moves. “I will not let the anti-growth coalition force us to follow behind. Labor, Liberal Democrats, Scottish nationalists, unions, established interests masquerading as think tanks, talk shows, Brexit deniers, environmentalists from Extinction Rebellion or some of those who have come here today to scream…they’d rather protest to act, write on Twitter to make tough decisions.”

That is, they are against us. This was one of those moments where Truss was able to send energy to the audience who had succumbed to defeat in recent days.

Truss once again reiterated that the withdrawal of the maximum 45% tariff on the highest income, imposed by protests from highly relevant figures within the party, had become a “distraction”. “I understand. I have listened,” said the British prime minister. But most of his tax deductions (personal income tax, corporate tax, Social Security contributions or transfers of assets), which represent nearly 50,000 euros of public debt, are still in effect. taxes are the right thing to do, morally and economically,” he defended. “The Conservative Party will always be a low-tax party,” he promised.

The problem with the prime minister, as reflected in his speech, is that he plays with contradictions in criticizing everything he did in previous years – the years he was part of a conservative government – ​​while trying to score all the medals in the same era. It promises a minimal public intervention economy and boasts at the same time that it has injected direct aid into households and businesses, to alleviate the energy crisis, a dimension almost unknown in other European countries. “I am determined to try a new approach and break this long cycle of high taxes and low growth,” Truss said.

In his speech he even imitated the slogan popularized in his day by Labor member Tony Blair, when he insisted that his three priorities were “education, education, education”. In Truss’s case, it’s “growth, growth, growth.” But the applause that began with the set phrase was minimal, late and soulless, as most of them had been heard throughout the speech. Only when he has promised that he will keep aid to Ukraine, and that he will not tolerate a peace with Russia that involves surrendering territory, does Truss sound like someone who believes in what he says, and not like a politician who looks nervous. side to side trying to follow the sentences written on the teleprompter screen that he was reading.

Support to the Minister of Economy

Truss has words of support for his finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, whose sustainability has been questioned by many Conservative MPs. And like him, he also wants to make clear his commitment to keeping public accounts in balance. “I also believe in fiscal responsibility, in extracting maximum value from taxpayers’ money, in a healthy economy and in a fit state,” he said.

But, above all, after years in which Brexit and Johnson’s own stance led to the move from Tories of his natural voter, Truss has tried to push himself by restoring a conservative essence: “I like companies, I like entrepreneurs, I like people who take responsibility, start their own business and invest in the country’s economy.”

It is not his words, however, that have reassured markets, but the extraordinary intervention of the Bank of England, which launched to buy public debt last week. Truss lashed out over the summer, throughout the main campaign, against the British monetary authorities, questioning his independence. A month later, his speech was different: “The truth is that the Bank of England independently sets interest rates, and politicians should not interfere in this. We will cooperate with the bank”, he promised.

The prime minister has been dismissed with applause, and he still has nearly a week before parliamentary activity resumes. Opinion polls give the opposition Labor Party an overwhelming gain (up to 33 points) in voting intent, and none of the Conservatives now want an early election that would lead to the party’s complete collapse, after 12 years in power. In theory, Truss has two years to straighten the course of the country and show whether his plans for change are working, or whether it’s purely ideological fumes. What has become clear to him this week is that he is not even enjoying 100 days of courtesy from any of the new prime ministers. There was already a strong current within the party ready to watch him closely and constantly threaten his survival.

Hours after the speech, Mike Pickering, co-founder of the group M People, wrote on Twitter: “I don’t want my song to be the soundtrack to so many lies”, and reminded Truss of another part of the letter: “You have hurt me. Time You’re done. Get out of here. Pack your things.”

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