He will remain in office for one week, until the election of a new leader.
Liz Truss has announced her resignation because she cannot “fulfill the mandate for which I was elected” and will remain as Prime Minister for a week, until the election of a new leader. “I can’t”, she has said in a short statement. The Conservative Party will now have to elect its fourth leader since the ‘Brexit’ referendum, which has divided the parliamentary group and the country.
The announcement comes after the prime minister called Sir Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 Committee, a representative of the parliamentary group’s deputies, to her office at 10 Downing Street. He was followed by Therese Coffey, Deputy Prime Minister, and Conservative Party Chairman Jake Berry. The meeting suggested the end of a 44-day mandate.
Truss’s position as prime minister is shaky since she had to sack her finance minister, Kwasy Kwarteng, last week and replace him with Jeremy Hunt, who overturned almost all of the tax cuts announced on September 23 by his predecessor. The parity of the pound and the price of government bonds improved on the promise of fiscal sobriety.
Truss’s credibility had been damaged, her Cabinet of supporters seemed inadequate to govern in the new circumstances and the parliamentary group, which did not support her as Boris Johnson’s replacement, sharpened their divisions. The bitter resignation of a minister and the chaos in the management of her deputies in the parliamentary session, on Wednesday, confirmed that the Government cannot guarantee her stability.
At noon this Thursday there were 17 deputies who had publicly called for Truss’s departure or a vote of confidence. It seemed like a coordinated movement. But a change in party rules would be needed before the 1922 Committee can call a vote of confidence in the prime minister so early in her term. And no one offered clarity on how to replace their leader without going through a new internal electoral process.