Liz Truss quits as UK prime minister
Liz Truss has resigned as UK prime minister after just 45 days in office.
Speaking outside of No. 10 on Thursday afternoon, she announced there will be another leadership election within the ruling Conservative Party, which will decide who succeeds her.
This makes Truss the shortest-serving PM in UK history and the country’s fourth leader in little over three years.
Truss said she arrived in office during a “time of great economic and international instability.”
“We delivered on energy bills and cutting national insurance,” she continued. “We set out a vision for a low tax high growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.”
But added: “Given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected.”
Truss will remain in office until a successor has been chosen, with a leadership election expected in the coming week.
“This will ensure we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security,” said Truss, adding that she had notified King Charles III of her resignation.
The news means Truss is the shortest-serving PM in British history. The last record holder was George Canning who died of ill health in 1827 after 119 days in office.
A comic campaign by the British newspaper the Daily Star had set up a live stream asking whether a lettuce would outlast the UK PM, which they likened to the vegetable.
It appears the lettuce has won.
Truss only became prime minister on 6 September after beating former finance minister Rishi Sunak in a Tory leadership contest.
But her short period in charge was disastrous.
A botched economic plan unveiled by the government last month triggered financial turmoil and a political crisis that has seen the replacement of Truss’ finance minister, multiple policy U-turns and a breakdown of discipline in the governing Conservative Party.
On Thursday, a senior minister quit her government with a barrage of criticism and a vote in the House of Commons descended into chaos and acrimony.
Before resigning, Truss had held a hastily arranged meeting in her 10 Downing Street office with Graham Brady, a senior Conservative lawmaker who oversees leadership challenges.
Brady was tasked with assessing whether the prime minister still has the support of Tory members of Parliament — and it seemed she did not.
