Liz Truss quits as UK prime minister

LONDON — Liz Truss has resigned as U.K. prime minister after a chaotic six weeks in office, saying she “cannot deliver the mandate” on which she was elected.

In a short but dramatic televised statement outside No. 10 Downing Street Thursday, Truss admitted she could no longer command the support of her party and that a rapid-fire Conservative leadership election will take place over the next week to choose her successor.

Truss’ resignation after just 44 days makes her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history — an extraordinary and unwanted tag she could scarcely have imagined when she was selected as leader by Tory members on September 6.

But in less than two months in office she triggered a meltdown in financial markets, sacked two of her most senior ministers, was forced into multiple policy U-turns and ultimately lost the backing of her own MPs.

Her successor will have to resolve significant tensions within the ruling Conservative party over the U.K.’s economic approach, while facing a yawning budget deficit which must be filled with tax rises or deep spending cuts. They will also face pressure for a general election, although — given their disastrous poll ratings — the Tories are likely to resist calling one until legally required to do so in 2024 or January 2025.

“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” Truss said in her statement Thursday. “I have therefore spoken to his majesty the king to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.”

Turmoil

Truss had faced a disastrous start to her premiership after unveiling a radical economic plan of unfunded tax cuts on September 23 which spooked financial markets, sent U.K. borrowing costs soaring and collapsed her party’s poll ratings to a record low.

She attempted to steady her faltering administration last week by sacking her friend and chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and replacing him with a center-ground choice, her former leadership rival Jeremy Hunt. He immediately junked her entire economic program in an effort to calm the markets and bring down Britain’s borrowing costs.

But Truss’ premiership disintegrated Wednesday night amid chaotic scenes in the House of Commons, where party enforcers struggled to marshal mutinous Tory MPs in a crucial vote. Earlier in the day Truss had been forced to suspend one of her closest aides and sacked her home secretary, Suella Braverman, enraging her right-wing supporters.

The turmoil prompted more Conservative MPs to go public with their demands for Truss to leave office, with dozens more calling for her to go behind the scenes.

Truss then held crisis talks Thursday morning with Graham Brady, chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee, which sets leadership contest rules; Deputy PM Thérèse Coffey; and Conservative Party Chairman Jake Berry. Together they concluded she could no longer command the support of her own MPs.

Speaking to reporters in Westminster Thursday afternoon, Brady said the plan as agreed with Berry was to conclude the leadership election by October 28, meaning a new prime minister will be in place before Hunt’s next big fiscal statement on October 31.

Nominations will close Monday at 2 p.m., and in a move that is expected to substantially narrow the field compared to the past summer’s 11-strong contest, candidates will need the backing of at least 100 fellow Tory MPs to progress. If only one candidate reaches that threshold Monday, they will be crowned leader that same day.

If there are three candidates who manage to garner that number of backers, Tory MPs will vote again to whittle them down to a final two before the contest is opened up to the party’s approximately 180,000 grassroots members. The contest will be wrapped up by next Friday at the latest.

The favorites to succeed Truss as PM include Rishi Sunak, the former U.K. chancellor who won more backing from Tory MPs than any other candidate last time round, but who she defeated in a head-to-head ballot of Tory members over the summer.

Also in the running are Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt and — incredibly — former PM Boris Johnson, who remains wildly popular among Tory Party members. Johnson, who left office only last month, is currently on holiday in the Caribbean with his wife Carrie. Hunt has already ruled himself out of the running.

Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, called for an immediate general election so that the British people could choose their next leader.

He told broadcasters on Thursday that “we can’t have a revolving door of chaos, we can’t have another experiment at the top of the Tory Party. There is an alternative, and that is a stable Labour government. The country should be entitled to have their say.”

This developing story is being updated.