Liz Truss would have made Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister if the Tories had listened to her in 2019, a former Downing Street chief has claimed.
The failed Prime Minister, who was Trade Secretary at the time of the 2019 election, wanted to ditch the 'Get Brexit Done' slogan widely credited with winning the election for Boris Johnson. Instead, she told senior campaign aides they should focus on Britain being close to a trade deal with then-US President Donald Trump.
"Liz Truss was trying to kill the Get Brexit Done narrative," former No10 director of communications Lee Cain said at an event in London this week. She didn't want that as the slogan. She thought it should have been 'We're going to get a great trade deal with America', that was what she wanted to do for that election."
Mr Cain said Ms Truss had called him, strategist Isaac Levido - who is running Rishi Sunak's campaign for the next election - and top Johnson guru Dominic Cummings, to advise them to switch up the strategy.
"Obviously we pointed out, firstly, we're probably not going to get [a trade deal] this side of the election," Mr Cain said. "And of course [ Labour ] would have framed it as the Tories selling the NHS to Trump. It's the worst imaginable framing of that election."
He added: "If Liz is leading the 2019 election, and that's the framing, Jeremy Corbyn is the Prime Minister."
Ms Truss would go on to defeat Rishi Sunak to become Prime Minister after Boris Johnson was turfed out of Number 10. She was the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history and was accused of crashing the economy with her disastrous mini-budget.
Earlier this year she blamed the "deep state" for hastening her downfall.