What is the "deep state," cited and feared by Liz Truss and Kash Patel?

The former Tory leader has used her new YouTube show to double down on the rhetoric that governmental agencies worked together to force her out after 49 days.

She has become an early major British adopter of the phrase, which has gained traction in conservative America - where Kash Patel and Marjorie Taylor Greene have promoted it.

On episode one of The Liz Truss Show, the ex PM said: “The deep state tried to destroy me but now I’m back and excited to launch this show.”

Of the end of her short tenure, she wrote in her 2024 book Ten Years to Save the West: “Little did I know the establishment was about to use every tool at its disposal to fight back.”

But what is the “deep state” conspiracy?

What is the deep state?

The deep state is a theory that unauthorised secret powers of the network are operating within a government, but independent of the will of an elected official.

There is no official definition, but in the UK it could refer to an unproven and hypothetical alliance between bodies that include:

• The civil service,
• The Bank of England,
• The monarchy,
• Police and secret service,
• Peers and the House of Lords,
• Media company owners.

Ms Truss’s comments have also implicated her own Conservative Party within the deep state.

This is not an official list, but while it is not a new idea, it has not always been referred to as the deep state.

"There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge,” the Queen is alleged to have said to former royal butler Paul Burrell in one potential reference.

And the British civil service has been cited as an organisation onto its own, with television satire Yes Minister parodying this idea back in the eighties.

Steve Hilton, one of David Cameron’s advisors, said in 2018 that Tony Blair had passed on a more sinister verdict of the civil service.

Mr Hilton told Fox News that the 1997-2007 prime minister had told him: “You cannot underestimate how much they believe it’s their job to actually run the country and to resist the changes put forward by people they dismiss as ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians.

“They genuinely see themselves as the true guardians of the national interest, and think that their job is simply to wear you down and wait you out.”

Civil servants are politically neutral and vow to serve the government of the day, but Mr Hilton’s comments signify a mistrust between some people and the country’s operations.

In the case of Liz Truss, Conservative members turned against her after her mini budget presented £45bn in unfunded tax cuts, which led to interest rates rising rapidly.

However, in Ten Years to Save the West, she argued that the deep state had sabotaged her efforts to cut taxes and reshape the government.

Ms Truss then peddled the idea she was forced out by the deep state in February 2024 to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, US, last year, an event where she appeared alongside far right figurehead Steve Bannon.

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth called on then prime minister Rishi Sunak, who succeeded Ms Truss, to nip the idea in the bud.

“After crashing the economy and sending mortgages rocketing, Liz Truss is now spreading conspiracy theories with Steve Bannon and spearheading a wacky fringe group to take over the Tory party again,” he told the Guardian.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper added: “These bizarre conspiracy theories pedalled by Truss and her cabal should have no place in British politics.”

Conservative shadow secretary Helen Whately told Lewis Goodall on LBC that she would not be watching The Liz Truss Show, but stopped short of calling her out.

“I have a job to do,” she said.

Lewis responded: “She says she was brought down by a deep state that includes your paty, do you agree with that?”

Ms Whately said: “I don’t agree with that, one of the reasons why people were angry with us is that changing the leader distracted from the job we were getting on with.”