This did not stop Truss from laying out her plans to ‘Get Britain Moving’, claiming that she had “three priorities for our economy: growth, growth and growth.” There was a clear theme of growth and the economy in Truss’ speech.
The importance of economic policy covered much of the Prime Minister's speech as she saw her party as one of fiscal responsibility, despite her recent U-turn on her proposed cut to scrap the 45p rate of tax for the highest earners, whilst her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, admitted that his economic plan caused a few problems. Neither the Chancellor nor the Prime Minister took accountability for their economic failures and most of Kwarteng's economic policies remain. Truss told the conference that her government would cut taxes as it was the “right thing to do morally and economically” and she said she would “build roads, rail, energy, and broadband quicker.” The significance of growth was evident when she labelled the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the SNP as “anti-growth” and also labelled unions, think tanks and Brexit-deniers as those who “prefer protesting to doing” unlike her who was on the side of “normal working people.”
With regards to housing and levelling up, the Conservative Party conference strengthened the fact that their policy of levelling up the country has not been at top of the current government's priorities, however, there was an insistence from the minster of levelling up and the secretary of state for Wales that levelling up remained a government priority. Whilst Truss only mentioned net zero once in her speech and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is the business secretary, showed his support for offshore and nuclear power.
Brexit was another important topic that was covered in this conference with the promise that the UK will offload all “red tape” with the EU by the end of the year and wanted to “take back control” from the European human rights court. In this context, the topic of the Rwanda policy came back and Truss promised to ensure that the European courts could not overrule UK law. This brings us to the Rwanda policy, where the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, promised to ensure that this policy would be followed through with.
It is important to note that despite the conference and Truss’ U-turn, there remains a Tory revolt, for example, backbencher Michael Gove has routinely undermined Truss’ policies.
