Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned on Thursday amid calls from within her own Conservative Party to step down from the top job, six weeks after Downing Street entered 10. Truss’s resignation was highly expected as his policies triggered massive economic turmoil, and there was a backlash from several quarters amid an already dire life crisis in the UK.
Truss announced her resignation in an address outside Downing Street, where she said there would be a leadership contest within the next week, adding that she met today with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee. “This morning I met Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee. We have agreed that the election of the leadership will be completed within the next week. This will ensure that we meet our financial plans and the economic stability of our country. And stay on the path of maintaining national security.”
She said she would remain, prime minister, until a successor is chosen.
During her address, Truss admitted that she could not fulfill the mandate to which she was elected. “I agree that in view of this situation, I cannot give the mandate on which the Conservative Party elected me. Therefore I have spoken to His Majesty the King to inform you that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party,” Truss said.
In just six weeks after entering office, Truss’s liberal economic policies triggered a market downturn, an emergency central bank intervention, several U-turns, and the firing of his closest political ally and Treasury chief Quasi Quarteng.
Truss and his former finance minister Quarteng unveiled a fiscal package last month that sent shockwaves to financial markets and left the Conservative Party divided. Truss, who took office on 6 September, sacked Quarteng and abandoned almost all of his economic programmes, causing the pound to crash.
The crisis caused more than a dozen lawmakers within his Conservative Party to publicly demand his resignation. Several more people were reported to have submitted letters to Brady calling for his removal, although party rules would have forbade another leadership campaign for 12 months.
On Wednesday, Truss, who lost the second of the government’s four most senior ministers, faced ridicule as he tried to defend his record in parliament and saw his lawmakers openly quarreling over the policy, in Westminster. The feeling of anarchy deepened.
Truss’s resignation comes at a time when Britain’s financial reputation has hit a rock bottom, with the economy slowing down and inflation hitting a 40-year high.
(with agency input)