PRITI Patel is making a last-ditch appeal to win over Tory Brexiteers as she prepares to announce she is standing for leader within hours.
The Home Secretary is expected to announce TONIGHT she will join the race to be the next PM if the Brexit backing European Research Group of Tory MPs back her.
Ms Patel warned Britain is in the grip of a 1970s-style economic meltdown and vowed to cut tax, ditch green levies and start fracking.
Taking a swipe at leadership rivals all jumping on the “fashionable” bandwagon of tax cutting, she promised her cuts would be felt in pockets by the next election.
Holed up in a room in a corner of Parliament, Ms Patel told the powerful European Research Group that only she can be trusted to deliver on Brexit.
She told the cloak and dagger hustings that “quite frankly we are in one hell of a hole” of rocketing inflation and “no one in the party has gripped it”.
Many in the party “will remember what the 1970s was like” and the next PM must break with “Treasury orthodoxy”, deregulate and cut taxes.
She told the sweaty room of MPs: “When it comes to the fashionable line of cutting tax….we are all Conservatives and believe in cutting taxes.”
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The darling of the Tory right suggested she would cut income tax and change personal allowance rates.
She added: “Any reform around taxation, we will have to make sure it touches people by next election.”
Energy has been “an albatross round our neck” and the government has “failed on energy”, she said.
The next PM must ditch green levies and “be bold” on what this means for trendy Net Zero pledges, she said.
On Brexit, she said tha party must “have the courage of its convictions” and must not “cave in” to the EU.
Instead Britain must “slug this out” and push ahead with blowing up the NI protocol to save the peace process in Northern Ireland.
She said: “We need to stand firm in terms of negotiations and dialogue.”
She also said she was the only Cabinet minister arguing to ditch the NI protocol back in July.
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If she runs, Ms Patel will be the 12th MP to join the Tory leadership race.
Among the crowded field of contestants, so far the hot favourite to win is Rishi Sunak.
The former Chancellor has received the backing of the highest number of Tory MPs – currently 37.
Others in the race include Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, former Health Secretary Sajid Javid, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Attorney General Suella Braverman.
All candidates are running on a platform to cut taxes and shrink the size of the state.
Mr Javid has vowed to slash the size of government coffers by £39 billion.
But he has been criticised for not properly demonstrating how he will find the money to fund the tax cuts.
Mr Zahawi has pledged to slash income tax to 19p in 2023 and 18p in 2024.
The Chancellor says this will allow households to keep an extra £900 a year in their pockets.
The timetable for voting in the leadership contest will be finalised by 1922 backbench committee this evening.
When a new Tory leader is crowned Boris Johnson will move out of No10 and the UK will have a new PM.
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