Liz Truss is reportedly eyeing up a political comeback almost 100 days after she left Downing Street. The former prime minister visited Washington DC last month where she met Republican politicians and campaigners.
It has now been reported that Ms Truss – who exited No 10 in October in the wake of her disastrous mini-budget which sparked economic turmoil with its sweeping unfunded tax cuts – told US conservatives that she “remained determined to rouse Britain from economic stagnation”. .
The ex-PM also made it known that she “did not trust” her successor Rishi Sunak to “do the job”, according to US website Politico.
It is claimed that Ms Truss admitted she made “mistakes” by moving too quickly with her agenda during her brief premiership.
But the former foreign secretary is said to still believe in her low-tax vision and “used her trip as a research expedition to inform a comeback”.
In a meeting with Kevin Hern, a member of the US House of Representatives, Ms Truss reportedly said she wanted to create a group in Westminster similar to the Republican Study Committee he chairs.
Mr Hern said the former PM told him she wanted to form the caucus to “house all of their ideas into a collective group, in order to hold the current prime minister accountable”.
He added that she suggested the “Conservative Growth Group” as a name.
Earlier this month, a number of Ms Truss’s allies came together to form a group with the same name spearheaded by Tory MP Ranil Jayawardena.
Meanwhile, a congressional aide who met Ms Truss claimed she expressed fears that the UK’s Conservative movement could “disappear entirely.”
Former Tory chairman Sir Jake Berry, who accompanied the former foreign secretary on the trip, told the website that the party had “failed over a significant period of time” to explain “why we are Conservatives in a compelling way”.
It comes as Ms Truss has kept a low profile since exiting Downing Street three months ago after just 49 days in office.
But it is understood the South West Norfolk MP is planning to make an intervention calling for taxes to be slashed ahead of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s March Budget.
A colleague told the Financial Times earlier this month: “Liz believes that the policy was right but that she did not get the political backing she needed.
“She is still convinced we need to get out of this box of low growth.”
It comes amid growing calls by Tory MPs to ease the tax burden, which is at its highest level since World War Two, as the Conservatives flounder behind Labor in the polls.
