Liz Truss at 10 Downing Street on October 19, 2022.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday.
She said she would remain in the role until a new leader of her party is chosen.
Truss’ economic growth plan sparked chaos in the markets and her own party.
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned on Thursday, just over six weeks after she took on the role.
Her resignation came amidst an economic crisis in Britain and after a series of policy reversals by her government which badly eroded Truss’s authority.
Her announcement on Thursday came on her 45th day in office. Truss could become the shortest-serving prime minister in her country’s history, if she leaves office before she hits 119 days.
Speaking outside Downing Street, Truss said that she was not able to deliver the mandate that she was elected on and would leave the role after her successor is chosen in a party leadership contest. She said that process would start within a week, but it is not clear how long it will last.
A string of Tory MPs publicly urged Truss to resign earlier on Thursday, with many of them describing her government as unsustainable.
It followed a fractious vote Wednesday night in parliament, where the government narrowly won a vote on energy policy but was faced with furious allegations of bullying MPs into voting.
Truss became the prime minister on September 6, after she won her party’s leadership contest.
But since that victory, her time in office was marked by controversy, leaving her the least-popular Conservative prime minister in history and with her party’s polling numbers plummeting.
Her mini-budget last month spooked the markets, prompted a plummeting British pound and forced her to replace her finance minister, who reversed almost the entire package of economic measures.
The Home Secretary also resigned on Thursday, which meant Truss’ top two Cabinet members were gone from her government within weeks of their appointments.
The leader of the Labour party, the UK’s biggest opposition party, said that the country should have a general election instead of another prime minister being appointed by the Conservatives.
He said the Conservatives lack the “basic patriotic duty to keep British people out of their own pathetic squabbles.”
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.