Liz Truss Resigns, New PM to be Announced Within a Week

After a tumultuous forty four days in office, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced to resign her position Thursday afternoon. 

Truss’ resignation comes after only six weeks in office, making her Britain's shortest-serving Prime Minister. Despite setting a new record low, Truss presided over some of the most memorable events of the year. 

Just two days after replacing her predecessor Boris Johnson, who was also forced to resign after facing numerous scandals, Britain's longest reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth II passed away. Truss oversaw her state funeral and a ten day period of national mourning. 

Her honeymoon period with the British public ended when former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng announced his “mini-budget” on September 23rd. The unfunded mini-budget would have scrapped the planned increase in the corporate tax rate, eliminated the top income tax bracket, and reversed the 1.25% rise in National Insurance among many other provisions. Financial markets reacted negatively to the announcement and the Bank of England was forced to spend £65 Billion buying government bonds to stave off a pension crisis. Even the IMF criticized the tax-and-spending proposal, urging Truss to “reevaluate” the plan and saying it would “likely increase inequality.”

After a media blitz defending the mini-budget, Truss was forced to fire Kwarteng and replace him with veteran Tory MP Jeremy Hunt. The new chancellor gutted nearly all of the provisions in the original budget in a move described by the BBC’s Economics Editor as “the biggest U-turn in British economic history.”

Despite the reversal, Truss’ approval rating fell to 18%, with even 55% of conservative party members saying Liz Truss should resign. By Monday October 17th, five Conservative MPs had called for Truss’ resignation. After a dramatic and hostile PMQ session on Wednesday October 19th where Truss claimed “I’m a fighter not a quitter”, Home Secretary Suella Braverman tenured her resignation. 

The very next day, Truss announced at a Downing Street press conference that she had informed King Charles II that she would be stepping down from her role as Prime Minister within a week.