U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced she will resign from her position following weeks of turbulence inside her office, just over a month after being elected in September.
Truss was expected to face challenges when she took office to replace Boris Johnson, who resigned in July following a string of scandals. Upon being elected, Truss faced a slew of obstacles, including soaring inflation and an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected,” she said in a speech on Thursday.
Truss told reporters she had informed King Charles III she would resign as leader of the Conservative Party and would stay prime minister until a successor is chosen within the next week. Her resignation marks the shortest period of time anyone has ever held the position of prime minister in the United Kingdom.
Graham Brady, the chairman of the committee of Conservative lawmakers, will now oversee the process of electing a new leader, which the country hopes to do over the next week. Party members are expected to vote between a short list of two candidates selected by Conservative lawmakers.
Brady said the new prime minister should be selected by the end of the month before the next fiscal statement is implemented on Oct. 31.
However, the process remains unclear and has been under scrutiny by members of the minority Labour Party.
“The Conservative Party has shown it no longer has a mandate to govern. After 12 years of Tory failure, the British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos,” said Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party. “The Tories cannot respond to their latest shambles by yet again simply clicking their fingers and shuffling the people at the top without the consent of the British people.”
Starmer called on the government to hold another election “now” rather than waiting until the next general election, which is currently scheduled to be held in 2025.
Truss was chosen by the ruling Conservative Party, automatically winning the election that was determined by lawmakers inside the House of Commons rather than the country’s voters. Truss was unpopular among U.K. residents leading up to the election, with that sentiment only increasing after she announced plans to scrap an increase in the corporation tax.
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Corporation tax in the United Kingdom was initially set to increase from 19% to 25% under Johnson before Truss scrapped the plan on Sept. 23. Truss later reversed course and decided to go forth with the original plan for the tax.
Truss is now as unpopular as former Prime Minister John Major was after Black Wednesday, when Britain crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, according to polling expert Sir John Curtice. She is also now more unpopular than Johnson was when his “partygate” scandal was at its height in early January.
