45 days into the job, embattled British PM Liz Truss resigns

Tribune News Service

New Delhi/London, Oct 20

Embattled British PM Liz Truss on Thursday resigned as Conservative Party leader, ending her tenure at 10 Downing Street after just 45 days into the job following an open revolt against her chaotic leadership.

Three PMs in 6 yrs

Theresa May - July 13, 2016 to July 24, 2019

Boris Johnson - July 24, 2019 to Sept 6, 2022

Liz Truss - Sept 6, 2022 to Sept 20, 2022

Sunak ‘certain’ to be in race

Former finance minister Rishi Sunak is “certain to stand” in the contest to succeed Liz Truss, a reporter at the Telegraph newspaper said on Thursday citing sources. Reuters

The crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time. Inflation in the UK last month crossed 10.1 per cent, a 40-year high, while the Bank of England was forced to stem a sharp selloff in Britain’s $2.3 trillion government bond market.

The 47-year-old outgoing PM will stay in charge until her successor is elected by the Tory party, with a speeded-up leadership election to be completed by next week. Her former leadership rival, Rishi Sunak, is seen as a frontrunner in that race but a consensus within a divided Tory party remains elusive.

“I recognise that given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,”

Truss said in a brief statement outside 10 Downing Street. The embattled leader said she had spoken to King Charles III to notify him of her resignation and also met the Sir Graham Brady, in charge of Tory leadership elections.

“We have agreed that there will be a leadership election to be completed within the next week...I will remain PM until a successor has been chosen,” she added. A downcast Truss, who stepped out of 10 Downing Street with her husband, said she had taken over at a time of great instability but ultimately admitted she had failed in her mission to deliver her economic agenda. Truss was Britain’s third woman PM after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.

The turmoil comes a day after Suella Braverman’s explosive exit from the Cabinet after admitting a breach of the ministerial code by discussing government policy in private emails and a scathing parting attack on her boss. Meanwhile, the Labour Leader, Sir Keir Starmer, renewed his call for a general election as the only way out of the “pathetic squabbles” within the governing party.

“All the failures of the past 12 years have now come to the boil,” he said at an event in Brighton, with reference to the Tory-led government’s term in office. /PTI

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