How could Liz Truss be replaced as Prime Minister?

Over the summer, conservatives have chased Boris Johnson out of power amid concerns their party is falling behind in the polls.

As the October nights approach, the Tories have found themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire with her replacement Liz Truss also faced calls to go.

His hardline free-market budget that prioritized tax cuts for the wealthy sent markets tumbling and put the party 33 points behind Labor in the polls.

The dire economic plan prompted Mr Truss to sack his Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in a bid to deflect blame, and there are already whispers that she may not be in office any longer with a a number of Tory MPs openly calling him to leave.

But what should the Conservatives do to get rid of her, and is it even possible?

Here we go again

The most conventional way for the Conservative Party to get rid of of its leader is for MPs to write letters of defiance to the ruling party committee in 1922.

Under Conservative rules, if 15% of the parliamentary party - currently 54 MPs - send a letter, then a vote of no confidence from all MPs are triggered.

It happened to Mr Johnson, who initially survived the vote, which requires a majority of MPs to oust someone as leader.

Several MPs have already called Liz Truss to go with suggestions up to 100 could have sent letters to committee chairman Sir Graham Brady.

The funny thing about this mechanism is that the only person who knows how many letters are entered is Sir Graham because the number is private until the threshold is reached. As such, there is plenty of room for speculation and no hard evidence.

Sure at this time?

Under existing procedures, no Conservative leader who has survived a leadership challenge can be challenged for another year.

< p>Some Tories have claimed that this rule applied to new leaders who had just been elected - a fact reported and confirmed by Sir Graham.

So, is Truss safe? Not necessarily, even if it is. Shortly after Mr Johnson survived his no-confidence vote, things went from bad to worse for him and many MPs changed their minds and decided to walk away.

This graph, created by Statista for The Independent, shows the voting intentions of British adults this year. The Conservative Party's popularity took a nosedive in September

(Statista)

MPs did indeed threaten to change Mr Johnson's rules to allow for another challenge: and the same threat came applies to his successor.

In order to change the rules, the members of the executive of the 1922 committee would have to agree that the situation merited such a course of action.

Could the rules be changed?

Senior members of the 1922 committee reportedly held secret talks to discuss whether the threshold could be reached - and whether the rules should be changed.

But there may also be a delay due to the need to fill two committee executive positions.

These positions were created by the appointment of Aaron Bell and from Nus Ghani to government posts by Mrs. Truss. They are unlikely to be filled before Wednesday 19 October at the earliest.

Meanwhile Sir Graham has returned from vacation this week and is expected to count the letters he has received.

Are there other ways?

Unless the rules change, Truss could be ejected the same way as Mr. Johnson. He was hit by ministerial resignations and left isolated.

Eventually, some allies convinced him that it was time to leave for the good of the party and that there was nothing productive he could do...