What does the launch of Liz Truss’s Popular Conservatism group tell us about the future Tory party?

Claiming not to be a Liz Truss fan club, PopCon gives voters a glimpse into the looming post-election Tory bloodbath, says Andrew Grice

Liz Truss at the launch of Popular Conservatism, also attended by Jacob Rees-Mogg (PA)

Liz Truss has launched (yet) another Tory grouping, in her latest attempt to steer the Conservative Party to the right. It is a further blow to Rishi Sunak’s efforts to unite his party ahead of the general election.

Popular Conservatism, or PopCon for short, aims to influence the debate on what should be included in the Tory election manifesto. But it will also put down a marker for what many Tories privately expect to be an inquest into a crushing election defeat.

Is this a Liz Truss fan club?

Organisers insist not, saying it is about “ideas, not personalities”. Mark Littlewood, former director general of the free market Institute for Economic Affairs think tank, insists that he, not Ms Truss, heads the PopCons. “She’s not the leader of it; I’m the director of it,” he explains. But the group admits taking inspiration from her ideas.

What do the PopCons want?

The group aims to put pressure on Mr Sunak to cut taxes, adopt a harder line against illegal and legal migration and leave the European Convention on Human Rights. It is anti-woke, with Ms Truss telling the launch the government is wrong to allow people to choose their gender and for “pandering to the anti-capitalists”, while ordinary people believed “the wokery that is going on is nonsense”.

Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair, used his speech at the launch to claim that only “odd weirdos” care about achieving net zero.

Record-breaking prime minister Liz Truss at the launch of Popular Conservatism (Reuters)

The group also has in its sights what it describes as a “quango state” of some 500 bodies, including the Office for Budget Responsibility. It claims such unelected bodies are anti-democratic because they push the government into higher taxes and spending and more state intervention. The group opposes “nanny state” policies such as Mr Sunak’s proposal to raise the legal age for smoking.

Some Tory MPs suspect the real goal is to influence the inevitable battle for the ideological soul of the party in the event it loses the election. The suspicion is that right-wingers want to make Mr Sunak the scapegoat for the predicted loss and to claim they warned the party he is not “a real conservative” despite his fiscal and social conservatism.

Are the PopCons part of a plot to oust Rishi Sunak before the election?

No. Those involved are hardly the prime minister’s biggest cheerleaders, but they did uninvite former cabinet minister Simon Clarke after he last month launched an unsuccessful insurrection calling for Sunak to step aside because the party will be “massacred” at the election. The PopCons judged his presence would draw speculation that it was part of an anti-Sunak movement and wanted the focus to be on its ideas.

Ranil Jayawardena, another former member of Truss’s short-lived cabinet, pulled out of the launch, suggesting it might be divisive. He echoed Sunak’s words by saying the Tories needed to “stick with the plan”.

Why was Nigel Farage at the PopCon launch?

The former Ukip and Brexit Party leader, now honorary president of Reform UK, insisted he was attending in his role as a GB News presenter. But he couldn’t resist tweaking Tory tails by saying he was not seeking to join the party “at the moment”. Many Tory grassroots members would like him to do so but Mr Farage said the party is now “so far away from the centre of gravity of most Conservative voters, it is almost untrue.”

Liz Truss is back in the spotlight but not as the leader of the new grouping (Reuters)

He continued the guessing game over whether he will campaign for Reform UK at the election, though he is unlikely to contest a parliamentary seat after seven bruising defeats. “I’m very happy with life as it is, thank you very much indeed,” he said, adding: “Doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind.”

Do the Tories need another faction?

Certainly not, though the PopCons insist they are a grassroots organisation and do not seek to “replicate or replace” any of the right-wing caucuses of Tory MPs.

Intense debates over the government’s controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has put the spotlight on the Mafia-style “five families” on the Tory right. They are the European Research Group of hardline Brexiteers; the Common Sense group of anti-woke, tough on immigration campaigners; the New Conservatives, many of whom were first elected in 2019 and who often campaign on social issues; the Northern Research Group of MPs representing red wall seats who push for more “levelling up”; and the Conservative Growth Group of pro-Truss tax-cutters.

Their enemies, including Mr Sunak’s allies and the moderate One Nation group, can take some comfort from the fact that right-wingers cannot play “happy families” as they are divided amongst themselves – not least over who should succeed Mr Sunak as Tory leader. But after an ominous outbreak of infighting at the start of an election year, Mr Sunak would rather his party rediscovered what was once its “secret weapon” – unity.