Prime Minister Liz Truss walks out of 10 Downing St. to announce his resignation at Downing Street on Thursday in London.
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Rob Pinney / Getty Images
Prime Minister Liz Truss walks out of 10 Downing St. to announce his resignation at Downing Street on Thursday in London.
Rob Pinney / Getty Images
British Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced her resignation after weeks of criticism from her opponents and members of her conservative party and the resignations of two of her top cabinet picks.
Truss said she would remain as prime minister until a successor is chosen. She said a leadership election would be completed within the next week.
She said she took office at a time of great economic uncertainty and was elected with a changing mandate, but, “I recognize even though I can’t delegate.”
She announced her resignation in a brief speech outside the prime minister’s residence in London.
Only six weeks into office, Truss is one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in British political history. A series of significant missteps meant that much of the political vision she outlined during her leadership campaign was scrapped following severe adverse reactions from financial markets.
Along with friend and political ally Kwasi Kwarteng, Truss took office on the promise of cutting taxes and boosting the country’s economic growth through a form of “drip economics.” But when Kwarteng announced massive tax cuts to parliament, along with new spending plans focused on protecting households from high energy prices, the country’s currency plummeted in value, in when the cost of government debt increases.
As a result, UK mortgage costs looked set to soar, while import costs rose for businesses, and within weeks Truss was forced to reverse his plans piece by piece until the end of the year. Together with her she fired Kwarteng and replaced him with a former political rival, Jeremy Hunt, as finance minister.
Within days, Hunt had almost completely canceled the rest of Truss’ economic program, and as opponents inside and outside her conservative party began calling for her resignation, a cabinet member Another senior, Interior Minister Suella Braverman, was forced to resign for sending a sensitive document from a private email account. In her resignation letter, she expressed concern about “government direction”, and appeared to accuse Truss’ actions in recent weeks of not being “seriously political”. Braverman was replaced by another conservative Truss pushed out of her cabinet just six weeks before she took office.
Under a stream of scornful questioning Wednesday from her main political opponent, Sir Keir Starmer, and amid taunts from opposition members, Truss asserted in parliament that she was a “person” struggle, not a quitter.”
Hours later, chaotic attempts to force conservative lawmakers to vote in favor of fracking – another key element of her leadership platform – ended with allegations that members had used by her supporters to vote with her government. By Thursday morning, Truss confirmed she would be stepping down.
Truss replaces Boris Johnson as prime minister this summer. Johnson was forced to withdraw by his party after many questions about his character amid a series of scandals.
