It marks the latest doubling-down from Truss on her free-market agenda — and comes as the Tory Party she once led tries to shrug off a hefty election defeat under her successor Rishi Sunak and pick a new leader.
Truss argued that the mini budget, which offered a host of tax cuts and supply-side reforms but which was not independently scrutinized by Britain’s public spending watchdog, had been a bid to “reverse Britain’s economic decline and to get our country growing again.”
“If the mini budget hadn’t been undermined by the economic establishment, things would be different now,” she argued.
“The economy would be growing. People would be paying lower energy bills, thanks to getting on with fracking,” she said.
Truss added, “Corporations would want to locate in the U.K. because of our relatively low tax rates. The self-employed would be doing more business, thanks to improvements in IR 35 [tax rules]. And we would see a more dynamic, go-getting economy.
“But that didn’t happen because the mini budget was undermined by the economic establishment.”