The Tories could “die” and be replaced by Reform UK as the party of the right, Liz Truss has claimed.
In a stark warning to the party she briefly led two years ago, the former prime minister said there was “a real question about whether it does survive” in the wake of its worst ever general election result last month.
She also repeated her claim that Nigel Farage could have a place in the Conservative Party in the future if it chose to break away from “consensus” politics.
Truss was speaking on Monday at an Edinburgh Fringe event where she was booed and heckled by the audience.
She said: “I think if the Conservative Party wants to survive - and I think there is a real question about whether it does survive or whether or not Reform becomes the party of the right in Britain.
“It needs to advocate for genuine change and it needs to be prepared to say what we got wrong in the last 14 years not to deliver that change.”
Truss, who lasted just 49 days in No.10 and whose disastrous mini-Budget triggered economic chaos, also took a swipe at the candidates running to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.
“I’m hearing too much from candidates saying, ‘we need unity’, or ‘we need to dampen things down’,” she said. “I think that’s completely wrong – that’s not where the country is.”
Asked by presenter Matthew Stadlen if the Conservatives could “effectively die”, she replied: “Yes.”
Truss also defended her record in office and denied that her plans for £45 billion-worth of unfunded tax cuts were to blame for a spike in interest rates which sent mortgage bills soaring.
Asked by one audience member to “just apologise”, she replied: ”“This is the kind of inane comment that I get from people who do not understand or care what is going on.
“There’s somebody in the audience who doesn’t even want to listen to my answer, who doesn’t want to understand what actually happened and all they care about is trading political insults and, frankly, that is why the country is in the mess we are in now because we’re not having a serious discussion about why the British economy is not succeeding.”