Loss of Truss: Why UK PM Liz Truss has resigned less than two months into office

Why has Liz Truss resigned?

Truss became prime minister on September 6 after being elected the head of the Conservative Party and winning the confidence of her party members in a battle for the leadership against Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson’s chancellor of the exchequer whose resignation had ultimately brought down the previous PM.

In her address outside Downing Street on Thursday, she said she could not deliver on the mandate she was elected on, and had therefore notified King Charles III of her resignation as the Tory leader.

The election of the new Conservative leader would be completed within the next week, she said — setting an unusually short timeline for the process. She said she would remain PM until her successor had been chosen.

The pressure had been building up.

Truss’s announcement came after she met the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs as more Tories called for her to quit, a BBC report said. Britain’s interior minister Suella Braverman had quit her post on Wednesday, becoming the second senior cabinet minister to depart within a week after Kwasi Kwarteng, the finance minister, was sacked last Friday.

Braverman resigned over a “technical” breach of government rules — she sent an official document from her personal email account — in her resignation letter, but she also criticised Prime Minister Truss, saying she had “concerns about the direction of this government”.

Kwarteng’s resignation had been over the impact of the financial plan — the so-called “mini Budget” — that he had announced. The fiscal plan led to massive market volatility, tanked the currency, and increased mortgage rates. Britain’s central bank, the Bank of England, was forced to intervene in the debt market, with growing concerns that pension funds could be threatened, The New York Times reported.

It is now back to the summer in the UK.

Senior cabinet members’ resignations, followed by the Prime Minister’s resignation — this same pattern of events had been witnessed in July as well. Johnson’s senior ministers, Rishi Sunak and then health minister Sajid Javid, had resigned after it seemed that the then prime minister would not be able to storm the public crises his administration was facing.

At that time, his handling of the Covid-19 crisis and his breach of Covid protocol (along with Sunak) seemed to build public disenchantment against the PM. A case of harassment involving Conservative MP Chris Pincher was apparently not dealt with appropriately by Johnson, and this seemed to be the tipping point for the loss of faith among senior ministers.

In Truss’s case, while it is not her personal conduct that has come into question, there was public anger regarding the economic policies her government introduced — of stark tax cuts, followed by an immediate U-turn and rollback. Also, unlike Johnson who was elected by a popular vote, Truss was solely chosen by party members. Her general popularity did not have strong backing, and she had been struggling in the opinion polls.

What next for the UK, and who becomes the PM?

Truss is the fourth Tory PM — after David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson — who has resigned before the end of their term.

Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, said “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,” the BBC reported. He said the Conservatives have left the country “weaker and worse off”.

Demanding general elections, Starmer said, “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…We must have a chance at a fresh start. We need a general election — now.”