Liz Truss announced her resignation as British Prime Minister on Thursday, just six weeks after taking office. She was brought down by an economic plan that sent shockwaves across financial markets last month and divided her Conservative Party.
Speaking outside the door of her Number 10 Downing Street office, Truss said that she had lost the trust of her party by failing to deliver on the pledges she made when vying for Conservative leader.
A leadership election to succeed Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, will be held within the next week. George Canning held the previous record, spending 119 days before dying in 1827.
“I recognize, however, that given the circumstances, I will be unable to fulfill the mandate for which I was chosen by the Conservative Party.” “I have consequently informed His Majesty the King that I am retiring as Conservative Party leader,” she stated.
Earlier, Conservative Party leaders gathered at Downing Street, while a rising number of her own legislators called on her to resign.
Truss, who was appointed on September 6, was obliged to fire her finance minister and closest political friend, Kwasi Kwarteng, and renounce practically all of her economic objectives after their proposals for massive unfunded tax cuts destroyed the pound and British bonds. Her and the Conservative Party’s approval ratings have plummeted.
On Wednesday, she lost the second of the government’s four most senior ministers, faced laughs as she sought to defend her record in parliament, and witnessed her lawmakers openly disagree on policy, adding to the air of disarray at Westminster.
New Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt is now scrambling to find tens of billions of pounds in spending cutbacks to reassure investors and recover Britain’s fiscal reputation as the economy enters recession and inflation reaches a 40-year high.
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