British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced on Thursday that she would resign, just over six weeks after taking the reins of the Conservative Party as leader.
Truss’s short tenure was marked by turmoil over the government’s mini-budget, which rocked British markets, and internal party strife that led to cabinet departures and MPs expressing a lack of confidence in his new leader
Truss said that, “given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate for which I was elected by the Conservative Party”.
Another Conservative leadership contest will take place in a week, Truss said in a brief statement outside the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street. She will stay until then.
It will be the fourth such contest for the party since David Cameron resigned in the wake of a referendum that saw British voters back leaving the European Union.
“A fall and a shame”
The development came just a day after Truss expressed her desire to continue after apologizing for the tumultuous start to her leadership, saying she was “a fighter and not a quitter”.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the government’s finance minister, resigned last week after his so-called mini-budget announcement on September 23 rattled markets over his level of public debt during a time of economic uncertainty. He also angered opposition parties over his tax breaks for the wealthiest.
Jeremy Hunt replaced Kwarteng and on Monday pledged to scrap most of that mini-budget, which originally had Truss’s full support.
Interior Minister Suella Braverman left cabinet on Wednesday after a breach of the rules, but expressed “concerns about the direction of this government” in her exit letter.
“The business of government depends on people accepting responsibility for their mistakes,” Braverman wrote.
The effort by Truss’s supporters to shore up his position ahead of a fracking vote on Wednesday was seen as serious and exacerbated the government’s crisis, according to some MPs.
Conservative MP Charles Walker told the BBC it was “a disaster and a disgrace”.
“I hope all those people who put Liz Truss on [in office]I hope it’s been worth it,” he told the BBC. “I hope it’s been worth sitting around the cabinet table, because the damage they’ve done to our party is extraordinary.”
The match has also been wrapped up in the press. Newspapers that usually support the Conservatives were vitriolic. A Daily Mail editorial headlined: “The wheels have come off the Tory clown car.”
Follow the details of the leadership vote
Truss arranged a hasty meeting on Thursday with Graham Brady, a senior Tory lawmaker who oversees leadership challenges through the 1922 Commons Committee. Brady was tasked with assessing whether the prime minister still has the support of members Conservatives in Parliament.
Brady promised more clarity later Thursday in another leadership contest.
“It’s certainly not a circumstance I would like to see,” he told a group of reporters.
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential Conservative backbench, speaks to the press following the resignation of Liz Truss in London on Thursday. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
There was “fairly broad consensus” for a much shortened process to determine the next leader, Brady added.
In his statement, Truss said a short contest would “ensure we remain on track to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain the economic stability and national security of our country.”
The short-lived honeymoon for Truss effectively ended on September 23, when Kwarteng’s predicted £45 billion (C$70 billion) in unfunded tax cuts sent financial markets into turmoil, impacting the value of the pound and increasing the cost of UK government borrowing. The Bank of England was forced to intervene to prevent the crisis from spreading to the wider economy and putting pension funds at risk.
On Monday, Kwarteng’s replacement, Hunt, scrapped almost all of Truss’s tax cuts, along with his flagship energy policy and his promise not to cut public spending. He said the government will need to save billions of pounds and “many tough decisions” need to be made before setting out a medium-term fiscal plan on October 31.
Leadership Roulette
The Conservatives have been in power since 2010. Since Cameron resigned six years later, the UK has seen three prime ministers installed before the wider public had a chance to intervene: Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May .
British Prime Minister Liz Truss tendered her resignation outside 10 Downing Street in London on Thursday, with her husband Hugh O’Leary looking on. (Toby Melville/Reuters)
May would eventually win a closer-than-expected election in 2017 over Jeremy Corbyn, but paid the price for protracted Brexit exit negotiations with the EU. The determined Johnson helped deliver Brexit and won a landslide mandate with a late 2019 election defeat that led to Corbyn’s ouster as Labor leader.
But Johnson’s disorganized governing style and allegations of breaching pandemic rules eroded his internal support within the party until he was forced to step aside earlier this year.
Front Burner from October 11:
Front Burner30:52 Great Britain: more difficult or road to ruin?
In her first month as leader of the ruling Conservatives, British Prime Minister Liz Truss plunged the British economy into chaos. A major tax cut plan for high earners and corporations, aimed at stimulating the economy as energy costs rise, sent financial markets into a tailspin that sent interest rates soaring. ‘interest, sent the pound crashing and required urgent intervention from the Bank of England. . Truss reversed course and the economy is back from the brink, but the fragile state of the UK post-Brexit begs the question: is the UK OK? Today on Front Burner, Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and author of the forthcoming book The Conservative Party after Brexit, summarizes Britain’s recent turmoil and the turning points leading up to this moment.
Truss won the resulting summer leadership race to succeed runner-up Rishi Sunak, although most MPs and senior party figures backed Sunak, Johnson’s former finance minister. Members of the grassroots party favored Truss to a significant degree.
Truss was officially installed as Prime Minister on 6 September, meeting Queen Elizabeth just days before the monarch’s death.
Opposition Leader Keir Starmer of the Labor Party called for Truss to resign this week and called for an immediate election so the British public can help determine the way forward as the country faces a series of problems, including the highest inflation rate since the early 1980s, at 10.1. percent, according to the latest economic report on Wednesday.
“The Tories cannot respond to their latest confusion by once again clicking their fingers and shuffling the people upstairs without the consent of the British people,” Starmer said in a new statement after the resignation.
It was inevitable that Liz Truss would have to go after all the damage she has done, but it is not enough to change the leaders of a broken and chaotic Tory government.
Now there must be a general election. People won’t accept anything less.
—@Ianblackford_MP
Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford agreed, tweeting that “changing the leaders of a broken and chaotic Tory government is not enough”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, briefed on the developments in Brussels on Thursday, said it was important for Britain to find “stability as soon as possible”.
“On a personal level, I’m always sad to see a colleague leave,” he added.