Liz Truss fights for survival as even allies say she could have only days left

Liz Truss is fighting for her political survival, with Conservative MPs threatening to oust her and even allies warning she has just days to turn around her premiership despite ripping up her economic strategy and appointing Jeremy Hunt as chancellor.

Labour leader Keir Starmer increased pressure on Truss, calling on her to make an urgent Commons statement on Monday, with party insiders saying they would do everything possible to force her to come.

A poll by Opinium for the Trades Union Congress using the MRP method to estimate constituency-level results, projected a 1997-style landslide for Labour, with the party winning 411 seats.

It suggests the Conservatives would lose 219 seats to end up on 137, with the Liberal Democrats on 39 seats and SNP on 37, with 10 cabinet ministers including Jeremy Hunt, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Thérèse Coffey losing their seats in a general election, along with former prime minister Boris Johnson.

Meanwhile, plotting at Westminster continued with a group of senior Tory MPs, many of them supporters of Rishi Sunak, planning to meet on Monday night for dinner amid speculation that as many as 100 no confidence letters have been submitted to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee.

Another backbencher, Jamie Wallis, who entered parliament in 2019, broke cover and joined the call for Truss to quit, confirming to the Guardian that he had submitted a no confidence letter.

As she tries to stave off open rebellion, Truss will this week continue her meetings with small groups of Tory backbenchers as she desperately tries to convince them to back her, while Hunt will hold a series of roundtables on the economy for MPs.

The new chancellor, appointed after the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng in a day of chaos on Friday, has spent the weekend trying to offer reassurance that the government had control of the economy.

Yet Hunt painted a grim picture of what it would take to stabilise it after a turbulent few weeks during which the government scrapped plans to cut the 45p top rate of income tax and freeze corporation tax. He is also understood to be considering pushing back by a year plans to cut a penny off income tax next April.

Sunak, who came first among MPs in the leadership contest, remains the favourite, although Penny Mordaunt, who came third is understood to be sounding out colleagues and defence secretary Ben Wallace, popular among Tory members but who did not run last time, could also be a candidate for an effective Tory coronation.