Crisis-hit Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has brought forward an emergency statement on the economy to TODAY as Liz Truss clings to power.
More of the disastrous mini-Budget - such as cutting Income Tax to 19p in April - faces being junked as he makes an announcement two weeks early.
Mr Hunt is expected to make a short statement at around 11am, then update MPs at 3.30pm. The Mirror understands other mini-Budget measures are likely to follow in the footsteps of the £19bn a year cut to corporation tax, which was suddenly ditched in a U-turn on Friday.
His surprise statement will fast-track billions of pounds worth of measures in his October 31 plan “that will support fiscal sustainability”, the Treasury said.
The rest of the medium-term fiscal plan, which could include sweeping public spending cuts to balance the books, will then be made as planned on Halloween - if the Chancellor still has a job.
The cut in National Insurance from 13.25% to 12% is likely to survive but Mr Hunt has warned he is “not taking anything off the table”.
Mr Hunt told the BBC ’s Laura Kuenssberg: “We’re going to have to take some very difficult decisions on spending and on tax.” He said all government departments faced cuts and “some taxes are going to go up” - a reversal of Liz Truss’s pledge.
It is a death knell to so-called 'Trussonomics' of sweeping tax cuts and growth - despite the embattled PM claiming the "mission remains the same" in a surreal nine-minute press conference on Friday.
Mr Hunt - who was locked in Chequers crisis talks with Ms Truss yesterday - met with the Governor of the Bank of England and the Head of the Debt Management Office last night to brief them.
Today's change was announced this morning in a bid to calm the economy before the markets open - and give their first verdict on Friday’s turmoil that saw him replace sacked Kwasi Kwarteng.
But Liz Truss also rushed forward the statement as she faces a political battle to keep her job - and prevent herself becoming the shortest serving PM in British history.
Tory plotters are thought to be drawing up plans for a challenge as soon as this week after three MPs broke cover last night and called publicly for her to quit.
Ms Truss is expected to address the One Nation group of centre-right Tories today - among her fiercest critics - as scores more MPs call privately for her to go.
She technically cannot be ousted until September 2023 - but MPs could change the rules, and 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady is reportedly planning to update her today.
Tory MP Sir Roger Gale today warned the October 31 plan "will be make or break" for Liz Truss - "if she's still in post at that time".
“I think Jeremy Hunt is de facto Prime Minister at the moment," he told Sky, adding: "There is real power in Downing Street - but it’s not in No10, it’s in No11.”
He said the “last thing” he wanted is another leadership election - but if Liz Truss decided to go of her own accord “there would have to be I think a coronation” to bypass the Tory membership. However, he said there’s no agreed candidate.
Tory backbencher Crispin Blunt voiced his concern over whether Ms Truss could survive the current crisis, which has left her authority in tatters after only five weeks in the job, and was the first to call for her to go.
Andrew Bridgen and Jamie Wallis have also called on the PM to stand aside.
Labour demanded Liz Truss make a statement to the Commons and warned it will “do everything we can” to force her to appear.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said: “The Prime Minister says she is in charge but the evidence this weekend suggests she is in office but not in power.
“Friday’s press conference completely failed to answer any of the questions the public has. Mortgages are rising and the cost of living crisis is being felt ever more acutely: the Conservative Government is currently the biggest threat to the security and the finances of families across the country.”
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden said today's statement was "evidence of the panic the government’s in and the damage that’s been caused over the past few weeks. Clearly ministers are now terrified of market reaction.”
Pushing for an election, the Labour MP said “the damage has already been done” and “the people who did this damage are not the people who can undo it”.
But he suggested Labour - who had backed Tory plans to cut Income Tax to 19p - could support it either at 19p or 20p, despite the economic turmoil.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We won’t be fighting [the next] election in a promise to increase the basic rate of income tax … but right now it’s not clear what that basic rate will be.”
Ms Truss will now be trying to save her premiership this week with her fate hinging on the mood of the market and her own backbench MPs.
On Friday, she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng and and tore up key parts of her tax-cutting agenda to calm the economic turmoil that saw the pound plummet.
Those efforts, however, could mean nothing if Tory MPs decide that a change of leader is required.
Over the weekend, US President Joe Biden even chimed in, labelling the PM's economic vision a “mistake”.
But Jeremy Hunt, who carried out something of a media blitz on behalf of the PM over the weekend, insisted that she was still in charge even as he diagnosed the need for a tough package of tax rises and spending cuts in order to steady the UK economy.
Penny Mordaunt also offered the Prime Minister her full support, using a piece in the Telegraph to warn that the UK “needs stability, not a soap opera”.
She told colleagues that the “national mission” is clear but said it “needs pragmatism and teamwork”.
“It needs us to work with the Prime Minister and her new Chancellor. It needs all of us.”
Senior Conservative Alicia Kearns also told Times Radio that the question of whether Ms Truss should continue in charge is “incredibly difficult”.
And writing in the Telegraph, former minister Liam Fox called the current situation the “deepest political hole that we have experienced in a generation”.
Stuart Rose, a Tory peer and the Chair of Asda, told the Financial Times the Prime Minister was a “busted flush”.
Labour added to that pressure, with Sir Keir Starmer calling on the Prime Minister to appear before the Commons on Monday.
The Labour leader quipped that Ms Truss is now “in office but not in power”.
It comes as a new poll, first published in the Guardian, predicted a landslide for Labour and wipe-out for the Tories.
The poll, by Opinium for the Trades Union Congress and using the MRP method to estimate constituency-level results, put Labour on 411 seats compared to the Tories on 137.
In a sign of how divided the party is, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries hit out at her party colleagues.
“I cannot imagine there’s one G7 country which thinks we’re worthy of a place at the table.
“The removal of one electorally successful PM, the disgraceful plotting to remove another by those who didn’t get their way first time round is destabilising our economy and our reputation,” she tweeted.
