Embattled U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss has resigned following a tumultuous few weeks in office now distinguished as the shortest term in history.
Truss announced her resignation Thursday in a short statement outside her office at 10 Downing Street.
“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the conservative party,” she said.
She said she informed King Charles she would resign, but plans to remain prime minister until a successor has been chosen.
Truss, appointed by Queen Elizabeth on Sept. 6, two days before the monarch’s death, after winning the Tory leadership election to succeed Boris Johnson, faced mounting pressure to step down after losing another member of her Cabinet, Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
Truss’ leadership had been under question almost from the start after her botched economic plan — a major part of her campaign agenda — triggered financial chaos and she fired Treasury Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng amid a series of stunning policy reversals. Truss replaced Kwarteng with Jeremy Hunt, who had backed her opponent Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership election.
Braverman, forced to resign after admitting she sent an official document from her personal email, on her way out raised “concerns about the direction of this government” and accused the prime minister of breaking key promises to voters.
“Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious polities,” Braverman wrote in a message that turned up the heat on Truss to quit.
The so-called mini-budget Kwarteng announced last month included $50 billion worth of unfunded tax cuts, which spooked markets and caused the value of the pound to tumble. This increased the country’s borrowing costs, forcing the Bank of England to intervene.
On Wednesday, allegations emerged that senior party ministers “manhandled” fellow Tory MPs to vote with the government in a fracking-ban motion brought by the Labor Party.
Truss makes history as the shortest-serving British prime minister. George Canning, who previously held that distinction, died from pneumonia after five months in office in 1827.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
