Liz Truss, UK Prime Minister has resigned just weeks after winning a highly contested Tory leadership elections. In a speech outside Downing Street, Truss said: “I recognise that I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
She would remain in post until a successor takes over as party leader who will then be formally appointed prime minister by King Charles III.
Ms Truss took office 44 days ago and will become the shortest-serving PM in British history by her resignation down.
The outgoing PM said her successor will be elected in a Tory leadership contest, to be completed in the next week.
Tory MPs urged Ms Truss to go after her government was engulfed by political turmoil, following the ditching of most of her economic policies.
Ms Truss was elected by the Tory membership in September, but she lost authority after a series of U-turns.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for an immediate general election following Ms Truss’s resignation speech.
In her speech, Ms Truss said she entered “office at a time of great economic and international instability”, as war rages in Ukraine and living costs skyrocket, she also blamed what she called Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine as part of the spiraling cause and effect of the current global socio-economic instability.
But her resignation comes after a key minister, former home secretary Suella Braverman, quit and Tory MPs rebelled in a chaotic parliamentary vote.