Senior Tories urge Joe Biden to ‘sort out his own problems at home’ before wading into British politics after US President slammed Liz Truss’s tax-cutting proposals
- Mr Biden told reporters he disagreed with tax cuts for the wealthy on Saturday
- As Liz Truss battles to save her job, some Tory MPs have slammed the president
- One said the interference was a ‘diplomatic line that should never be crossed’
Conservative MPs have told US President Joe Biden to mind his own business after he labelled the Prime Ministers mini-budget measures as a ‘mistake’.
Mr Biden made the comments while visiting an ice-cream parlour, when he was asked by journalists what his view on Liz Truss’s recent u-turn over abolishing the plan to freeze corporation tax.
One Conservative MP described his comments as ‘a diplomatic line that should never be crossed.’
The President of the United States said on Saturday he, like so many others, was shocked by the mini-budget and her overall economic vision.
He told reporters: ‘Well, it’s predictable. I mean, I wasn’t the only one that thought it was a mistake.
‘I think that the idea of cutting taxes on the super wealthy at a time when…anyway, I just think…I disagreed with the policy.
‘But that’s up to Great Britain to make that judgment, not me.’
Joe Biden made the comments on the UK’s economy while visiting an ice cream parlour before the midterm elections
Liz Truss is already facing public calls from three Conservative MPs to leave her role, just 40 days after she became PM
Craig Mackinlay told the Telegraph that Biden’s comments are a ‘political line that should never be crossed’
Mr Biden also claimed the American economy was ‘strong as hell’ and inflation was ‘worse off everywhere else’ than in the United States.
‘The problem is the lack of economic growth and sound policy in other countries, not so much ours.’
Now a series of sitting Tory MPs have come out in criticism of Mr Biden’s intervention.
Andrew Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire who called for Truss to quit last night, wrote in a blog: ‘Some of us did predict the outcome of [Truss’s] mini-Budget in advance – but I don’t recall Joe Biden being one of them.
‘The fact that President Biden has joined the pile-on will do nothing but hasten her fast-approaching departure from Number 10.’
Craig Mackinlay, the Tory MP for South Thanet, told The Telegraph: ‘From President Obama weighing in on the Brexit debate in 2016, probably at the request of Downing Street at the time, US presidential interventions into UK politics is a diplomatic line that should never be crossed and rarely ends well.
‘I expect he’d felt emboldened by similar behaviour by the IMF, who decided to weigh in on UK taxation policy. I’d recommend that President Biden looked to his own country’s issues rather than a wider international net.’
Earlier this month the IMF issued warnings to countries around the world that there was ‘no room for missteps’ in monetary policy, thought to be a reference to Ms Truss’ plan to abolish the 45p income tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 per year and the subsequent u-turn.
Meanwhile Brendan Clarke-Smith, a parliamentary secretary at the Cabinet Office, said: ‘He said the right thing at the end in fairness [that it was up to Britain]. He should have said that at the start and then just left it.’
But the Conservative Party remains in turmoil as, just 40 days after she entered office, Liz Truss is already the subject of multiple plots to get rid of her.
It follows weeks of market turmoil and public outcry about unfunded tax policies which benefitted those most well-off, two embarrassing u-turns and a spat with her former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.
Mr Kwarteng was sacked by Liz Truss over the economic disaster, despite the fact that she campaigned for the role of PM on the back of the policies announced in the mini-budget.
New Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, brought in to replace the sacked Kwasi Kwarteng and to restore credibility to Downing Street, spent Saturday effectively trashing her mini-budget and the set of policies that brought Ms Truss to power.
Amid warnings of ‘difficult decisions’ to come over the next two weeks, Mr Hunt and Ms Truss will meet in her Chequers residence on Sunday as tax rises and spending cuts loom.
But Mr Hunt has also maintained that he and Ms Truss are a ‘team’, emphasising that his priority was ‘growth underpinned by stability’.
‘The drive on growing the economy is right – it means more people can get good jobs, new businesses can thrive and we can secure world class public services. But we went too far, too fast,’ he said.
Earlier, he told broadcasters: ‘Spending will not rise by as much as people would like and all Government departments are going to have to find more efficiencies than they were planning to.’
‘And some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want. Some taxes will go up. So it’s going to be difficult.’
It is now being rumoured that Tory MPs want Ms Truss gone by the end of the week.
Tory MPs will try to oust Liz Truss this week, despite Downing Street warning that it could trigger a general election.
Mutinous backbench MPs are pressing Tory shop steward Sir Graham Brady to tell the Prime Minister her time is up, or change party rules to allow an immediate vote of confidence in her leadership.
As the Tories descended into yet another civil war, three MPs broke ranks to publicly call on Miss Truss to resign just six weeks into her premiership.
Former minister Crispin Blunt said: ‘The game is up and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed.’
Sir Graham, chairman of the 1922 Committee, is said to be resisting an immediate putsch, arguing that the PM and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt deserve the chance to set out their economic strategy in a Budget on October 31.
But sources say that more than 100 MPs are ready to submit letters of no confidence in Miss Truss in a bid to force Sir Graham’s hand.
Some junior ministers are also discussing a wave of co-ordinated resignations of the kind that eventually forced out Boris Johnson. Rebels have even discussed holding a public vote of censure if Sir Graham refuses to act.
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