Tory MPs spooked after Bank of England forced to intervene on the economy

Tory MPs told The Yorkshire Post that Kwasi Kwarteng’s fiscal strategy has already caused some of their colleagues to send in letters of no-confidence in Liz Truss, only three weeks after she became Prime Minister, and will see MPs skip Tory Conference later this week.

The Bank launched emergency action to buy up £65 billion in Government bonds on Wednesday after pension funds began to sell, in order to head off worries about insolvency.

The move to prevent borrowing costs reaching unsustainable levels and to avoid a “material risk to UK financial stability” was welcomed by the Treasury but has caused alarm amongst Tory MPs.

One Senior Tory said that despite giving Liz Truss the “benefit of the doubt” over the past two weeks, colleagues have decided that her economic plan simply isn’t working, and that over the next few days “panic will set in” amongst the backbenches.

“It’s just amateur hour,” they told The Yorkshire Post.

“There is technically a one-year rule [where Ms Truss is safe from a vote of no confidence] but if we’ve wanted to circumvent it, we have done.”

They said that Liz Truss’ decision to appoint loyalists to her top team means there are a lot of “grumpy ex-ministers” waiting to act against her, such as previous chief whips acting like a “coven of witches”.

They added that amongst their colleagues there was a sense of disbelief, which will likely turn to anger before the Prime Minister will be given “an ultimatum”.

“If the majority of the party doesn’t like it, it won’t tolerate it,” they said, but admitted that they don’t know how the ensuing damage to the party could be repaired.

Yesterday, Julian Smith, a former chief whip said that the Government “needs to make changes” to its economic plan to avoid “further stress and strain”.

Sir Roger Gale, the North Thanet MP, told BBC News that we cannot wait until November to set out further details which could ease the turmoil in the markets.

Mel Stride, the Tory chairman of the Treasury Committee, warned “there’s a lot of concern within the parliamentary party, there’s no doubt about that”.

Chris Philp, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is set to write to the heads of Government departments in order to set out efficiencies and reprioritising spending, which could see further cuts to departmental budgets.

It was confirmed on Monday that the Government will not reopen its spending review, effectively giving civil servants a two-year pay cut ahead of what unions have called a “do or die winter”.