Liz Truss Announces Resignation As UK Prime Minister

Liz Truss Announces Resignation As UK Prime Minister

Liz Truss has announced her resignation as British prime minister, just six weeks into the job.

Speaking outside the door of her Number 10 Downing Street office, Truss accepted that she had lost the faith of her party and said she would step down next week, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.

Addressing journalists gathered in Downing Street she said she realised she could no longer deliver on the promises that won her the Conservative leadership.

She said, “I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.”

Appointed on Sept. 6, Truss was forced to sack her finance minister and closest political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, and abandon almost all her economic programme after their plans for vast unfunded tax cuts crashed the pound and British bonds.

Approval ratings for her and the Conservative Party collapsed.

Also, on Wednesday she lost the second of the government’s four most senior ministers, faced laughter as she tried to defend her record to parliament and saw her lawmakers openly quarrel over policy, deepening the sense of chaos at Westminster.

A new leadership election will be completed by next Friday, Oct. 28. Those expected to run include former finance minister Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, a former defence minister.

Jeremy Hunt, the man brought in to rescue the public finances, has ruled himself out.

Party members and Conservative lawmakers are expected to be given a say in the vote. A poll earlier this week showed that most members wanted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson – who was ousted from Downing Street in July – to return.

Labour leader Keir Starmer, whose opposition party has surged in opinion polls on the back of Truss’s short, crisis-plagued tenure, demanded a general election “now”.