Liz Truss has announced that she is to resign as prime minister just six weeks after taking office. There will be a leadership election within a week, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss says in resignation statement
The startling announcement outside 10 Downing Street came just after the Prime Minister requested a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee. She said that they agreed that an election for the leadership of the Conservative party will take place within the next week. She will remain as prime minister until a new prime minister is chosen.
The breakneck timeline for a leadership election suggests that party rules would be amended to allow MPs to choose a leader without consulting the membership, which chose Ms Truss over Rishi Sunak from a shortlist of two candidates this summer.
In a brief statement at a lectern in Downing Street, Ms Truss said she accepted that she “cannot deliver the mandate” on which she was elected
On Wednesday, Truss assured Parliament during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session that she was a “fighter, not a quitter.” But leading a ruling party is only possible with respect and credibility. Truss increasingly had little of either, and has now quit just a day later.
The decision comes after a night of remarkable scenes in Parliament, with legislators condemning strongarm tactics employed by Truss’ team that allegedly brought some colleagues to tears, and prompted growing demands for her to go from within her own party.
The focus now shifts to who might succeed her, but with no clear successor waiting in the wings, there could be more uncertain days ahead.
Truss, 47, promised a radical shift in Britain’s economic fortunes, turning it into a low-tax, high-growth country that would unleash its post-Brexit potential.
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