Liz Truss blamed the “powerful business establishment” for her failure as prime minister and was hampered by a lack of support from her Conservative Party colleagues.
Truss’s disastrous stay at Downing Street ended 49 days after former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s £45bn package of unfunded tax breaks revealed in his mini-budget sent the UK into economic collapse.
In what is seen as the start of her political comeback, Ms Truss wrote in a comment in daily telegram the party never gave it a “real chance” to push through its radical program.
The ex-premier also stressed that she could not assess the level of opposition to her plans.
She said she wasn’t “innocent” that her chancellor, Mr. Kwarteng’s mini-budget, was catastrophically out of control, but still believes her approach to spurring growth is the right one.
She said: “I don’t pretend to be innocent of what happened, but in fact the very powerful business establishment, in the absence of political support, did not give me a real opportunity to carry out my policy.
“When I entered Downing Street, I assumed that my mandate would be respected and accepted. How wrong I was Although I expected the system’s resistance to my program, I underestimated its extent.
“Similarly, I underestimated the opposition within the conservative faction to a transition to a less regulated economy with lower taxes.”
While she did not specifically criticize her successor Rishi Sunak, she suggested that he avoid raising the corporate tax rate from 19 percent to 25 percent, calling the policy “economically harmful”.
She said: “I firmly believed and still believe that raising the tax rate is counterproductive and hurts investment in the UK and the wages of people who are all taxpayers.”
Ms Truss, the shortest prime minister in UK history, stressed that she wants to be prime minister to make a difference and not “control the recession or let our country stagnate”.
The South West Norfolk MP also accused the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) of “straitjacketing” tax policy and said she disagreed with the impact assessments of her proposed tax cut.
After the mini-budget, she lamented that the government had become a “scapegoat” for developments that had been going on for some time.
“It’s only now that I realize what a fragile powder keg we were dealing with with LDI,” she said.
“It quickly turned into a market stability issue and we had to take action to stabilize the situation. While the government focused on investigating what had happened and taking corrective action, political observers and the media immediately issued a verdict blaming the mini-budget.
“Unfortunately, the government has become a useful scapegoat for problems that have been brewing for months.”
She said she would have acted differently in hindsight, but she should have fought against “the gut feeling of the Treasury Department” and “the broader orthodox economic ecosystem.”
She said that her and Mr. Kwarteng’s growth plan, which combined tax cuts and deregulation to revive an unsustainable economy, was a deliberate break with “leftist” economic thought, which angered some powerful forces.
“Honestly, we also pushed the water uphill. Much of the media and the general public were unfamiliar with the main arguments regarding fiscal and economic policy, and over time sentiment shifted to the left,” she said.
The hype surrounding her plan to abolish the 45p top tax rate – not least in her own party – highlights the difficulties she faces.
“While this move made good commercial sense, I underestimated the political backlash I would face, which has focused almost entirely on optics,” she said.
In her 4,000-word article, she said she was “deeply concerned” about having to fire Mr. Kwarteng, but felt she had no other choice.
“By then it was clear that the political agenda would not survive and my priority should have been to prevent a major collapse for the UK,” she said.
“I still believe that providing the original political recipe that I used to fight the leadership election was the right thing to do, but the forces against it were too great.”
While she regrets not being able to follow through with her plans, she said she has learned a lot from her experience, which she will use in the coming months.
“I have lost count of how many people have written or contacted me since I left Downing Street to say that they believe my diagnosis of the problems causing economic lethargy in our country and that they share my enthusiasm for solutions which I propose. ,” She said.
“While I regret not being able to fully realize my agenda, I am nonetheless optimistic about the future as the UK can now forge its own path as a free nation.
“I believe we can make a difference if we are bold and entrepreneurial and give people and companies the freedom they need to thrive. There is hope for the future.”
Ms Truss is expected to make several appearances in the media as part of her comeback.
The former prime minister has kept a relatively low profile as her catastrophic £45bn mini-budget in unwarranted tax cuts has fueled her downfall.