Conservative MPs have warned Liz Truss not to lurch the government to the right if, as expected, she triumphs over her rival Rishi Sunak and becomes prime minister next week.
Tory MPs cautioned that the new Conservative leader must not abandon the centre ground or surround herself with an inner circle of right-wing allies now that a general election is looming.
One former minister said: “I suspect she will go for a pretty hard-Brexit, right-wing, Thatcher-tribute government.”
The calls came as union leaders urged Ms Truss to “come clean” on her plans for workers’ rights, following reports that she wants to review EU-derived protections.
The next prime minister faces an uphill battle to unite the Conservative Party after a bruising leadership contest marked by a series of bitter blue-on-blue attacks.
Just last month Mr Sunak warned that Ms Truss’s plans would put vulnerable people at risk of “real destitution”, while her former cabinet colleague Michael Gove described her as being “on holiday from reality”.
Within weeks of entering Downing Street her government is expected to present an emergency Budget that will include her controversial planned tax cuts, which many Tory MPs fear will fuel already soaring inflation.
Others are concerned that her comments about “handouts”, voiced early in the election campaign, mean that any support offered to households over the cost of living this winter will do little to dent what is forecast to be a “terrifying” drop in living standards.
MPs urged Ms Truss to appoint a cabinet representing different “wings” of the party. “Loyalty matters, but competence matters as well,” one said.
Kevin Hollinrake, a Sunak supporter and a member of the Commons Treasury select committee, warned Ms Truss against cutting taxes at the same time as failing to offer adequate support to households who will be suffering this winter.
He said the new prime minister should not get “dragged right”, and must remember that parties win elections from the centre ground.
When it came to the leadership election, he said: “You play to the crowd a bit in these contests, but what you don’t want is to then continue that and only think it is about the [Tory] members. [Your policies have] got to be mainstream. That’s what my constituents support. If we get dragged right, we are in serious trouble.”
One former minister predicted that Ms Truss would struggle to unite the party at a time when some forecasts suggest inflation could go as high as 18 per cent, especially given that many Tory MPs think her plan for tax cuts and spending increases will “stoke” the problem.
But one backbencher from a red wall seat, who backed Mr Sunak, predicted that Tory MPs will “get behind” whoever is the new prime minister – “as long as she gives us something to get behind”.
The winner of the lengthy leadership contest is due to be revealed at lunchtime on Monday. They will be invited to form a government the next day, after they have travelled to to Balmoral to meet the Queen.
Despite early promise, Rishi Sunak is widely expected to lose on Monday
And only once they have returned to London later that day are they expected to conduct a reshuffle and make appointments to their cabinet.
On the subject of a review of workers’ rights, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Liz Truss’s number one priority should be to help families pay their bills this winter.
“Threatening hard-won workers’ rights is the last thing the country and working people need. She must come clean about her plans.”
There are concerns Ms Truss will be a tribute act to Margaret Thatcher
Boris Johnson will be giving his farewell as prime minister on Monday after three years
