Liz Truss’ first month as Prime Minister has been eventful to say the least.

Alongside her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, Liz Truss has announced new policies across the spectrum. These policies range from lifting the ban on fracking, to major tax cuts.

Everyone will hold their own views on the merits of each policy. However, it’s clear as day that her announcements signal a radical departure from the proposals in the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto.

There has also been a dramatic change in the people in government. Today’s Government is almost unrecognisable from the one elected in 2019. Every top-level Minister has gone as have two thirds of the cabinet. Only 2 cabinet ministers are in the same job as they were in December 2019.

This all raises the question – does this Government have a genuine mandate for their policies?

It is important to note that we don’t have a presidential system in the UK. Instead, we are a parliamentary democracy, where voters elect individual MPs, rather than a Government or Prime Minister. This means that we can change Prime Minister without a General Election, as long as they can command a majority in the House of Commons.

But the reality is that our politics have become more presidential in recent times with the Prime Minister taking more power at the expense of the Cabinet and Parliament. Here’s what Cabinet Minister, Jacob Rees Mogg, said on this issue back in January -

“It is my view that we have moved, for better or worse, to an essentially presidential system. Therefore the mandate is personal rather than entirely party, and that any prime minister would be very well advised to seek a fresh mandate.”

Referring to previous prime ministers who were not voted in by the public, but by their own party as replacements, he said:

 “I think the days of Macmillan taking over from Eden or even Callaghan from Wilson no longer get the mood of the constitution and our constitution evolved.

“So my view is that a change of leader requires a general election.”

Mr Rees Mogg has since changed his mind on this issue, but it’s clear that many  people believe there should be a General Election.

The reality is that voters did not choose these leaders or these ideas at the ballot box in 2019. The public at large has not been consulted on these policies at all - and, if the opinion polls are to be believed, support for them is very low.

We asked our supporters for their views on whether we need a General Election. Our survey received over 5,000 responses.

92% of our supporters believe we should have an early General Election. 61% of our supporters believe a General Election is needed immediately, and 27% believe we should have a General Election in the next year.

Only 6% of our supporters said we should wait and have a General Election at the normal time.

Here’s why our supporters want a General Election –

•  "The Conservatives are pursuing policies, across the board, that have no public support according to most polls and which are unrecognisable from their manifesto of three years ago."

•   “Although people vote for their local MP I believe that they (more so) vote for the PM. So if that changes it should go back to the electorate to decide who they want to lead the country.”

• "The tories do not have a mandate for their changes in policy"

The wider public are also starting to call for a General Election.  A petition hosted on the UK Parliament petitions website, asking for a General Election, has already reached over 570,000 signatures. Recent polling from YouGov suggests that 40% of adults believe 'there definitely should' be a General Election in the next few months, and 20% believe 'there probably should' be an election.

Greenpeace activists encapsulated the mood by disrupting Liz Truss’s Conservative party conference speech displaying a banner saying, ‘Who Voted For This?’.

Yet again our political system looks broken, outdated and unresponsive to the people it’s supposed to serve. That’s why we need to fight harder than ever to change it and bring our democracy into the 21st century.