U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced her resignation following nearly a month of chaos.
Key Details
- British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation as Conservative Party leader and the office of Prime Minister on Thursday.
- The resignation comes as a result of pressure from members of her own party, unhappy with her zigzaggy performance with the troubled economy.
- The party will elect a new leader in a few days, with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson as one name in the mix. Former treasury chief Rishi Sunak is also a potential replacement.
- Truss will remain in office until the Conservative Party chooses her replacement.
- “Truss became the third Conservative prime minister to be toppled in as many years, extending the instability that has shaken Britain since it broke off from the European Union and leaving its leadership in limbo as the country faces a cost-of-living crisis and looming recession,” says AP.
- The last prime minister since Winston Churchill to serve two different monarchs.
Why it’s important
Truss only assumed office on September 6. Her resignation makes her the shortest-serving Prime Minister in U.K. history.
As we previously reported, Truss’s mini-budget announcement on September 23 caused weeks of chaos and economic turmoil in which the Bank of England raised interest rates, the pound crashed, and bond prices dropped. Truss attempted to stay the course and weather the chaos until her planned speech in November, although she was forced to fire her treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng last week.
The new Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt announced Monday that the U.K. will back away from key elements of the Prime Minister’s mini-budget.
U.K. financial markets breathed a sigh of relief following the resignation.
The pound and other British markets rose after the announcement.
Notable quote
“The U.K.’s multidirectional train crash has seen its top treasury and homeland security ministers ousted, the chief and deputy chief Conservative whips reportedly resign only to un-resign, the government reverses course on much of its economic agenda, and a blood-on-the-floor spectacle last night in Parliament where Tory whips allegedly manhandled crying MPs into a controversial vote on fracking. And that’s just the past week,” says American Spectator.
