In more than a month since he became British Prime Minister, Tras has achieved "prosperity": the largest tax cut plan in 50 years was promulgated, but it was cancelled after only 10 days;

text/Cheng Jing

edit/Qia Fei

took office as British Prime Minister In more than a month, Tras has been "remarkable": the largest tax cut plan in 50 years was promulgated, but it was cancelled after only 10 days; the tax cut plan "scareed" the British financial market and brought the pound to a historical low.

On September 27, a currency exchange point in central London fell to an all-time low against the US dollar.

Not only that, according to the latest poll by YouGov, the British Labor Party, which has not been "in power" for 12 years, is far ahead of the ruling party Conservative Party in terms of approval rating, reaching 52% to 22%; Trass's own approval rating also plummeted in a short period of time, lower than her predecessors Boris Johnson and Theresa May.

enters October, and as the recession of the House of Commons reworks, Tras will face a more difficult situation: In addition to the Conservative MPs having differences with her on tax and welfare policies, MPs also threaten to launch a motion of distrust against her. The American Politician website wrote that the Conservative Party currently occupies a majority of seats in the House of Commons of , which seems "illusory" to Tras. If he was ousted before the end of the year, Tras would become the "shortest-lived" prime minister in British history - the previous record was maintained by British Prime Minister George Canning in the mid-19th century, who only held power for 119 days before his death. Why is the

tax cut plan opposed?

In late September, Tras, who had just taken office as British Prime Minister, put his promises during the campaign into practice and announced the most radical tax cuts in 50 years, including the cancellation of the plan to increase corporate tax to 25%, maintaining it at the current 19%, lowering the personal income tax rate, abolishing the additional 45% surcharge on high-income groups; significantly reducing stamp duty to support people to buy houses without paying stamp duty; canceling the increase of alcohol tariffs, etc.

According to new Chancellor Kwoten, the tax cuts will cost a total of £45 billion, and the funds required will be financed by the British government to expand lending.

British Chancellor Kwoten.

Because the above plan did not announce how to make up for the funding gap after the tax reduction, nor was it audited by the UK Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), the financial market was once "shocked": the pound fell to a new low in the past 37 years, the pound and British government bonds were both sold, and the yield on the UK Treasury bonds also soared to a new high in 30 years, forcing the Bank of England to invest 65 billion pounds to purchase Treasury bonds to restore market order.

analysts believe that the tax cut plan is a "bold but risky gamble" that the return from economic growth will offset the risks brought by the government deficit and the sharp expansion of debt in the case of high inflation and interest rate hikes . But obviously, the market is not buying it.

The British, who are enduring high inflation and soaring energy prices, also dislike the plan. Under the tax cut program, "the wealthiest families in the UK will benefit greatly", of which "people who earn more than $1 million per year can get tax cuts of about $58,000." 10 days after the announcement of the tax cut plan from

, opposition from the outside world forced Tras to reflect on his new policy. On October 3, Kwoten announced that it would suspend the implementation of the most controversial tax cut plan - the cancellation of the 45% tax rate for high-income groups. He issued a statement on social platforms saying that he "heard" and "understand" outside criticism, but other parts of the new economy plan will continue to advance, including other tax cuts, infrastructure plan and energy capping prices. When questioned by the media whether the new policy was a mistake, Kwoten admitted that the move distracted everyone from the package .

On October 3, Trass (center) attended the Conservative Party's autumn conference and listened to the keynote speech of British Chancellor Kwoten.

On October 5, a poll released by YouGov showed that only 14% of British people currently have a good impression of Tras. And two weeks ago, the figure was still 26%. Nearly three-quarters of the people had only negative opinions about her, and more than half believed that Tras should resign immediately.

Tras not only lost the support of the people, but her retreat in the tax cut policy has also continuously eroded the trust of some staff.Home Secretary Braverman expressed "disappointment" at the decision to end the 45% personal income tax rate, and Local Development Secretary Clark also agreed.

US " New York Times " pointed out that such a "180-degree turn" would make her mastery of power more uncertain. "Tax cuts are Tras' iconic economic proposal. Such rapid change of course on some plans will make people doubt her leadership ability."

Make enemies everywhere outside the party, and there are constant differences within the party

On October 5, Tras delivered a speech when attending the Conservative Party's annual meeting, trying to regain face, unite the masses, and boost confidence: "As long as there is change, there will be chaos. Not everyone likes change, but in the end everyone will benefit from it... We need to stand up. I am determined to let the UK continue to move forward, so that we can overcome difficulties and gain a foothold." Tras stressed that his only priorities are "growth, growth and growth".

Tras delivered a speech at the Conservative Party's fall convention.

Perhaps it is just the words of Mark Stills, a political scientist at the Oxford University, saying, "She likes to create controversy and provoke others." Now, Tras, standing in the eyes of the storm, has begun to make enemies.

Since "growth" is her only priority at this stage, any opinions that go against her may become the "culprit" that drags down the growth in the UK. She said the opposition Labour Party, Liberal Democratic Party , Scottish National Party , environmental activists, "radical trade unions", "vée occupants pretending to be think tanks" and "people who deny Brexit" are all members of the "anti-growth coalition".

Among the so-called "anti-growth alliance", the opposition from environmental organizations is the loudest. During her speech at Trass, activists from Greenpeace interrupted her and held up a sign with the “Who voted for this?” condemning her for tearing apart the Conservative Party’s commitment to protecting nature during the 2019 campaign.

At the Conservative Party’s fall convention on October 5, Tras was interrupted by a Greenpeace protester during his speech.

As energy costs in the UK soar, Tras promised to increase energy supply and approved more oil extraction in North Sea oilfield , which is called a "gift to fossil fuel giants" by environmentalists and will deepen the climate crisis. The UK government also said it will review or repeal hundreds of laws inherited from the EU after the UK's "Brexit" will be re-examined or repealed by the end of 2023, covering water standards, air pollution thresholds, and protection of rare species and fragile habitats. Coupled with Tras' commitment to relax land restrictions to promote investment and development, this series of measures has been opposed by environmental groups.

McGrady, head of the British charity " National Trust", threatened that 5.7 million members of the agency were "irritated" by Truss' policies and could launch a large-scale environmental campaign. The total population of Britain is only about 67 million.

After tossing out the economy, Tras then announced the second policy - energy rationing. In short, she asked the British commercial and industrial sector to reduce electricity and prioritize ensuring that people can survive this winter. For residents' heating and electricity use, Tras has set a £2,500 energy consumption ceiling. Once the ceiling is exceeded, the people will need to pay additional funds. Tras claims that this move maintains the minimum operation of corporate factories while ensuring residents' electricity use.

Tras' energy policy will not be effective at least a month later, but British media generally have a pessimistic attitude. The British " Guardian " said that this policy once again reflects the characteristics of Tras's rule: chaos, capriciousness and affecting people's daily lives.

St as British Prime Minister on September 6, and is expected to lead Britain out of the current crisis.

In addition, Tras has not announced so far how much will it be charged if household electricity consumption exceeds the energy consumption limit. Therefore, a large number of people criticized this policy on social media as actually a " blank check " and is not targeted at vulnerable groups.They asked Tras to take back the policy before negative impacts occur to ensure that people are not misled on energy prices and that they will not receive unaffordable energy bills this winter.

The above set of economic recovery "combination punches" that triggered public anger are called "advanced budgets" because the official annual budget of the UK government is usually proposed twice in the fall and spring. The official budget of the Trass government is expected to be proposed in late November and will be subject to parliamentary approval afterwards. Since the UK's fiscal policy is not only decided by the Prime Minister and Finance, the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of England and the Office of Budget Responsibility have the power to intervene, and it is crucial to get their support.

A Conservative Party member told Financial Times that the Conservative Party Congress at the beginning of the month was the "most chaotic, disunity and most painful" convention he had seen since the 1970s, revealing many differences within the party. Other economic measures in Tras include welfare cuts and supply-side reforms: Due to the surge in cost of living in the UK, former Prime Minister Johnson 5 proposed to increase social welfare based on inflation. This move is very different within the Conservative Party, and Tras is an opposition; the move to relax land planning may be opposed by some rural voters, who may resist land development for factors such as environmental protection, housing prices and aesthetic considerations, which is not conducive to the introduction of Tras' policies.

On October 2, people gathered outside the venue of the Conservative Party's autumn conference to protest.

Bloomberg pointed out that as the date of rework of parliament approaches, the most dangerous enemy of Tras will be the "back row" of the House of Commons. According to the tradition of the British House of Commons, the Prime Minister, Cabinet members, opposition leaders and shadow cabinets sit in front of the seats, and ordinary members of the parliament are sitting in the back. Now in the House of Commons, the back row is filled with former cabinet ministers, many of whom voted for Tras' opponents in this summer's Conservative elections.

An anonymous former minister told Bloomberg that he saw colleagues filed a motion of distrust against Tras to the Conservative Parliamentary Cauldron. According to them, some ministers will resign in the coming weeks. Some people secretly hope that seniors in the Conservative Party will select someone who can replace Trass.

, who was once the leader of the Conservative Party, wrote an article in the British " Daily Telegraph " on October 8, calling on the Conservative Party to closely unite behind the Prime Minister, "otherwise the 'anti-growth alliance' will win." The public endorsement of the former opponent may indirectly indicate that there are significant differences within the Conservative Party.

The internal strife of the Conservative Party seemed to have let the 12-year opposition Labour Party see the dawn. Not only did YouGov's survey show that the Labour Party's support rate is obvious, but another polling agency, Opinium, found that the Labour Party and the Conservative Party's support rate were 47% and 26% respectively, which is the largest Labour Party's leading position on record.

British Labor Party leader Stamo.

The UK will hold its next general election in 2024. But in this poll, 53% of respondents believed that Tras should resign as prime minister, and 61% believed that national elections should be held within the year.

The last flag bearer of neoliberalism?

At the beginning of his tenure, Tras tried to build herself into the second "Iron Lady", but in terms of political economy, she was more like former US President Reagan : no longer redistribute wealth, but instead cut taxes for the rich, promote their investment, and then drive economic growth, expand social wealth as a whole and benefit all classes.

New British Prime Minister Trass.

Reagan's economic policies helped the United States recover rapidly in the 1980s and created a large number of jobs, but also further widened the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States. The obvious disadvantage is that this targeted tax cut policy may not be effective immediately in promoting the overall economy, and many people will have to benefit after a period of "trickle drop". Therefore, this concept originating from Reagan's economic policy is also called "trickle down economics", and some critics call it "robbing the poor and helping the rich".

British Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar believes that the neoliberalism that emerged in the Reagan era has declined in the United States and Britain. Even the United States is strengthening government policy guidance on the economy, using finance to distribute wealth, and forming trade unions to protect workers' rights and interests. The most obvious example in recent times is that "Tras Economics" is disappointed in the market, politics and society.

A comment published by The New York Times on October 6 believes that behind Tras there is a group of lobby groups advocating laissez-faire economics. Tufton Street, located near the London Parliament Building, is the base camp of these groups for the past decade.

is known as the London Tufton Street, the base camp of the British "lazy economics" lobbying group. Shahmir Sanni, a former employee of the Brexit group, revealed that the lobby on Tufton Street has the same purpose, namely, "all government funded is wrong", as well as shrinking state power, reducing taxes, and guiding the private economy into the public sphere. Shani once revealed in 2018 that the official British Brexit group Vote Leave illegally used excess funds when promoting Brexit, and used another group's funds to purchase data from Cambridge Analytica. After Tras switched from the Liberal Democrat to the Conservative Party in 1996, the belief in "little government liberalism" has been throughout her political career. In 2011, one year after entering Parliament, she led more than 40 Conservative MPs to establish the "Free Enterprise Group". That same year, she wrote a book with four colleagues from the group (including Kwoten), opposing the argument of slandering the British economy and calling for Britain to return to "entrepreneurship and elite culture." Since then, she has published related co-written works and papers calling for tax cuts and growth.

From that time on, Trass has been funded by the Tufton Street lobby. When she was appointed as the Environment Secretary by Cameron in 2014, she adopted a fiscal austerity policy in her department. Since 2019, she has been the Minister of International Trade. Two months before the UK officially left the EU in 2020, she appointed several laissez-faire Brexitists from Tufton Street as consultants, including some staff members who were believed by some media to have played a significant impact in this tax cut plan.

One of the consultants, Daniel Hannan, is located in the office of the Free Trade Initiative and the Brexit camp's office are on Tufton Street, only two door numbers away. Hannan himself is one of the founders of the Brexit movement.

Now that Tras is the prime minister, her five close advisers are from liberal lobby groups on Tufton Street, including the chief economic adviser and political secretary. There are at least nine "alumni" from Tufton Street in other departments. The commentary said that the "funders" of these groups include BP , ExxonMobil and large tobacco companies and some American liberal groups, but this is only partial rather than full picture - in other words, no one knows who is funding the core members of this administration.

It is worth mentioning that during the campaign, Tras promised not to impose a "profit tax" on energy companies that have made a lot of profits due to the surge in energy prices this year. The above comment believes that the situation in the UK is much like that of the United States today. Billionaires who advocate laissez-faire economics funded a group of politicians who support anti-tax and anti-government regulation. They spread this ideology through the media, and for British people with high energy bills, shrinking incomes, and even potentially cutting welfare, they may not end up being too good if they were not the richest group.

In Fuluhar's view, even the United States does not play this game anymore. She quoted the statement of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo (Gina Raimondo) as saying that the Biden administration wants to play a greater role in guiding the supply side of the private sector, especially encouraging the manufacturing of products - not only by promoting "buying American goods", but by enacting corresponding industrial policies, shifting from focusing on distribution to focusing on production, "this means that the era of a laissez-faire economy is over."

Tras' troubles are more than that.After the tax cuts triggered turmoil in the financial market, many people paid attention to the potential transfer of interests behind Tras. Chancellor Kwoten, who worked for the British hedge fund Odey Asset Management, the fund's chairman, has long been bearish on pounds and British Treasury bonds. After the pound fell sharply in late September, its fund's market value soared 25% in September.

However, this time, there are a group of hedge funds , which are closely related to the British government, and Aodai is not the only one. According to the " Sunday Times ", after announcing the advance budget on September 23, Kwoten attended a gathering of a group of financial people in London and "opened champagne". Even though Tras defended him that "meeting business people is the job of the Finance Minister", the news sparked anger. Olney, spokesman for the British Liberal Democratic Finance Ministry, called for a "formal investigation" in Kwoten.

Although Trass' economic thoughts are still in the Reagan era, what she wants to helm now is no longer the UK she used to be. On October 10, one of the members of the "anti-growth alliance" mentioned by Tras, the leader of the Scottish National Party, Sturgeon , once again put forward the proposal of Scottish independence at the party's 2022 conference.

Tras had long denied the possibility of "second independence" - without the authorization of British Parliament , the Scottish Parliament had no right to initiate a legal independence referendum.

However, the current crisis of energy and cost of living, and the neoliberal proposition that Tras is currently proposing undoubtedly pushes Scots to the opposite side - Sturgeon mentioned "independence" 45 times in his speech, vowing to carry out the "Soviet independence" cause to the end.

In May 2021, Scottish people protested against the Conservative Party's rule in Glasgow.

Another island in the United Kingdom is also not calm. Northern Ireland has surpassed Protestants for the first time since its establishment in September this year. According to the Belfast Agreement signed in 1998 to end the conflict, both the British and Irish governments are obliged to hold a referendum when most residents of Northern Ireland and Ireland agreed to unify.

A recent poll conducted by Ireland Thinks, Ireland Thinks, showed that 61% of Irish people support unification; this data is only 41% in Northern Ireland, but it is also increasing year by year. The Sinn Fein , which is committed to unification, has become the ruling party in Northern Ireland this year and is also the second largest party in the Irish parliament. Party leader Mary Lu recently said that he would promote a unified referendum in the next 10 years.

In this way, everything may become a stumbling block on the road toward Tras.