Senior Conservative MPs have warned that voters could desert the party “in droves” if Liz Truss drops her plans for post-Brexit reforms.
Eurosceptic backbenchers rallied behind Ms Truss in the leadership election after she promised to pursue wider deregulation and turbocharge trade with Commonwealth countries.
But figures on the Tory Right have insisted the Prime Minister must not be forced into any further U-turns as she seeks to break further from Brussels and pursue a free-trading agenda.
Nigel Farage, former Ukip and Brexit Party leader, this week railed against Ms Truss’s decision to break a leadership election promise by raising corporation tax.
“[This] will make us completely uncompetitive and completely unconservative,” he said. “Twelve years of Tory misrule. We need a realignment of British politics under a new electoral system – this lot have betrayed us, let us down completely and utterly.”
In a further hint he is planning to return to frontline politics, Mr Farage told the Telegraph: “The Conservative Party as we know it is dead and needs to be replaced.”
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As she toured the country during the summer, Ms Truss said she would use Britain’s newfound freedoms to speed up transport projects – suggesting Brussels red tape had delayed these – and unleash more investment to grow the economy faster.
Ms Truss also announced that around 2,400 EU laws on the UK statute books would be given a “sunset” clause by the end of next year, meaning decisions would be taken on whether to amend, scrap or keep these pieces of legislation.
Senior Tories warned on Saturday that disillusioned voters could flock to a new Farage vehicle if Ms Truss were to back down on any more of her pledges.
“The polling suggests that, at least temporarily, we’ve lost a lot of people already,” one MP told The Telegraph.
“Liz will lose a lot of the others if she doesn’t deliver a lot of these things we’ve been talking about [during the leadership contest].
“Obviously if they succeeded in getting a more Remain leader, people would leave in droves.”
A second MP who backed Ms Truss’s campaign said: “Let’s be honest, the input of the Brexit Party to solve the impasse of the Brexit wars was very helpful. At times, pressure groups and protest parties can move the dial.
“Perhaps a bit of pressure and push from somewhere wouldn’t be unhelpful, but politically, a new Right-wing party wouldn’t do us any good at all.
“The thought [of a new Farage party] is almost too dangerous. We need to pull ourselves together, not rely on someone else to push us into it.”
‘Splinter party would let Labour win’
Another pro-Brexit backbencher dismissed the idea of an exodus of MPs to a new party as “utterly ridiculous”.
“None of us joined Ukip and the Conservative Party is the only party which can build an alliance across the centre-Right,” they said. “A successful splinter party would simply let the Labour Party win.”
Mr Farage stood down more than 300 Brexit Party candidates at the 2019 general election, a move that was partially credited with helping Boris Johnson win his 80-seat majority.
Reform UK, the rebranded Brexit Party led by Mr Farage’s ally Richard Tice, currently polls at around five per cent.
However, this is still enough to worry some backbenchers who fear such a margin would cost the Tories dozens of seats if they were within a few percentage points of Labour or neck-and-neck.
Last month, More in Common, the think tank set up to combat polarisation in politics, identified a new group in Red Wall constituencies dubbed “disillusioned defectors”, who could power a surge in support for populists similar to that seen in Italy, Sweden and France.
These voters suggested they would desert Ms Truss’s party for one that offered core “populist” policies, such as increasing criminal sentences and ending public funding for diversity and inclusion initiatives.
The emergence of a populist Right-wing party would be among the biggest challenges the Prime Minister could face when seeking re-election, research by the Onward think tank showed earlier this year.
